Postcards From No Man's Land
A Drop of Blood in a Bowl of Milk
Sometimes the days passed like years. Long. Slow. Winter and Spring. Summer and Fall. Aging. I was eighteen, but by the end of the day I felt like twenty-two.
Sometimes they passed like seconds. A blink and then I was home from work again. You were knocking on my door with a book in your hand, looking for help with your homework. Sometimes things were just that simple.
Simple.
By definition, this was a word I had come to long for. And it was so many different things. Your glasses slipping down the bridge of your nose. The childish excitement in your eyes when you relayed some story or other, an anecdote or two. The quiet blush on your cheeks, spreading like a drop of blood in a bowl of milk. Your smile, always your smile.
You were a creature of simplicity at its finest. You lived, you breathed. You smiled and you laughed. You were more often quiet than not, your voice was a jewel I'd learned to treasure.
I wished for that simplicity.
How young you were. Only fifteen, and already learning about greed. About desperation. Such a needy boy. Maybe my worst fault was that I couldn't deny you. I could never deny you anything. A kiss drenched in sin. A ride to the movies. I was never more jealous than when you asked me to drive you and that kid Frank into New York for the day. But I saw the way he looked at you, and his love for you was so...simple. Ah, that word again. It was in his eyes when he looked at you, and in the way his hand brushed yours as you walked. His heart and soul were tangible, held almost carelessly in the palm of your hand, but you weren't even aware of that. Your mind was on something else. Or, permitting my ego to get the better of me, someone else.
You have no idea how hard it was. To watch you look at me with young longing in your eyes. You didn't even know what real longing was; you didn't know how to disguise it. It was fresh and completely visible in the tone of your voice, yet, somehow, nobody even knew.
That's the thing with love. It became such a common occurence that people just barely even noticed it was there anymore.
I saw the way Frank watched you with his adoring eyes, and I made a sacrifice. I decided then that I would try to gently push your affections off of me and onto him. He was a good kid, cool even. And he would treat you right; I knew that with every word he spoke to you.
I failed, Mikey. When I tried to bring it up, you just got hurt and angry and confused. Worst of all you got disappointed. I don't want him, you said, You. I only want you.
Me? I said.
And you always said, Yes, you. Always you.
Forgive me for thinking that there was something better out there for you than what I was. Forgive me for hoping that you would realize this, and you would move on to someone you could be with for the rest of your life. Forgive me for disbelieving in what you thought was so right. Our love that is. Ours, what was yours and what was mine. What was ours together and collectively.
I think the harder I pushed you away, the tighter and more desperately you clung. As if I were your very life-line. Our blood was the same, Mikey. It was the same goddamn thing.
But it was me anyway. Me, not Frank.
So I did the only thing I could think to do. I had to do something to separate what we were, Mikey, don't you see? I needed to make you see that we were just too wrong to last. So I drove, baby. I tainted the blood that we shared and I drove down the dusty highway. You of all people knew I always wanted to crash.
So maybe it can't be me anymore, honey.
But it will continue to be you, yes, you. Always you.
Sometimes they passed like seconds. A blink and then I was home from work again. You were knocking on my door with a book in your hand, looking for help with your homework. Sometimes things were just that simple.
Simple.
By definition, this was a word I had come to long for. And it was so many different things. Your glasses slipping down the bridge of your nose. The childish excitement in your eyes when you relayed some story or other, an anecdote or two. The quiet blush on your cheeks, spreading like a drop of blood in a bowl of milk. Your smile, always your smile.
You were a creature of simplicity at its finest. You lived, you breathed. You smiled and you laughed. You were more often quiet than not, your voice was a jewel I'd learned to treasure.
I wished for that simplicity.
How young you were. Only fifteen, and already learning about greed. About desperation. Such a needy boy. Maybe my worst fault was that I couldn't deny you. I could never deny you anything. A kiss drenched in sin. A ride to the movies. I was never more jealous than when you asked me to drive you and that kid Frank into New York for the day. But I saw the way he looked at you, and his love for you was so...simple. Ah, that word again. It was in his eyes when he looked at you, and in the way his hand brushed yours as you walked. His heart and soul were tangible, held almost carelessly in the palm of your hand, but you weren't even aware of that. Your mind was on something else. Or, permitting my ego to get the better of me, someone else.
You have no idea how hard it was. To watch you look at me with young longing in your eyes. You didn't even know what real longing was; you didn't know how to disguise it. It was fresh and completely visible in the tone of your voice, yet, somehow, nobody even knew.
That's the thing with love. It became such a common occurence that people just barely even noticed it was there anymore.
I saw the way Frank watched you with his adoring eyes, and I made a sacrifice. I decided then that I would try to gently push your affections off of me and onto him. He was a good kid, cool even. And he would treat you right; I knew that with every word he spoke to you.
I failed, Mikey. When I tried to bring it up, you just got hurt and angry and confused. Worst of all you got disappointed. I don't want him, you said, You. I only want you.
Me? I said.
And you always said, Yes, you. Always you.
Forgive me for thinking that there was something better out there for you than what I was. Forgive me for hoping that you would realize this, and you would move on to someone you could be with for the rest of your life. Forgive me for disbelieving in what you thought was so right. Our love that is. Ours, what was yours and what was mine. What was ours together and collectively.
I think the harder I pushed you away, the tighter and more desperately you clung. As if I were your very life-line. Our blood was the same, Mikey. It was the same goddamn thing.
But it was me anyway. Me, not Frank.
So I did the only thing I could think to do. I had to do something to separate what we were, Mikey, don't you see? I needed to make you see that we were just too wrong to last. So I drove, baby. I tainted the blood that we shared and I drove down the dusty highway. You of all people knew I always wanted to crash.
So maybe it can't be me anymore, honey.
But it will continue to be you, yes, you. Always you.