First night back in New York, and I mean back, fully back.  I’m out with the girls, drunk on Shiraz, with who cares where he is, ‘cause I know he’d never cheat.”  Okay, so that is where we are.  And it’s full-on back New York.  I know what I’m in for.  I could be in bed, tucked in, without the slightest scent of food or alcohol.  Sleep breath and love.  No.  It’s Shiraz.  And he doesn’t care because he’s been out with his friends, and none of it really matters.  Everything seems temporary; it has to.  It has to because if you look, if you really look at the past ten years of your life you, he, realizes in those years he was married to someone he now says, without pause, “is crazy.  She really is just nuts.”  And nuts and crazy alienates her from me, putting me on his side, fighting for him, but if I knew her, I bet I’d take her side in all of it, his ex, who was with him since they were in high school.  “A bad marriage,” “not meant to be,” I hear, but I also wonder if it’ll be said to his next, after me.  They’re always nice words, bundled properly, behind bows and excuses and “young.”  Young is an excuse I’ve never really bought.  Even in the selling of my own story, I’ve never once chanted, “too young.”  Because really, at the end of the day, it’s two people, and how much are they willing.  To bend, to bleed, to bow.  How much are they willing to wave goodbye in favor of a very small but lasting “I see you.”  It’s not a question.  It’s not an answer.  It’s what I live.  Now.  And it sometimes feels much more alone than alone feels.

And he’ll come home drunk and loud, banging things, throwing shoes into closets.  Declaring, "i love you so much," but it’s sloppy and been said before under better conditions, and yes, there is a better.  There is a right.  There’s a moment that matters more.  When it’s said in daylight, looking into eyes, or rubbing her forearm and falling in love with a freckle, when you realize it does, your life, it really does matter more because she/he they are in it.  There does come that time, and we, as women, as me, want you to remind me that you know that time exists.  I want to know you KNOW how much it means.  But I never really do know, because before you cum, I have to ignore anything that comes out.  And any other time, I don’t know when to believe.  Except for now, now I would listen, but now doesn’t work for you because now is your now, and you have the right to have it.  So here we are, not closer, not farther apart, just here, breathing, wondering, really wondering if our fate is sealed.  I certainly don’t know for sure.  Everything is up in the air.  It’s the one thing you don’t want to know, and it’s the one thing I know more than anything.  Because when you’re away, you’re not with me.  And that’s not how it should be.  And forgive me for this, but FUCK EVERYONE who bothers to give advise on this one.  Point that shit inwards for once.  Merci.  And now, I’m off to read, alone, in bed, wondering about the rest of my life.