A Handheld Universe

To Orion:

What we shared wasn't necessarily love, and it was hardly friendship. It was something of a larger scale: a universe thrown up onto a coffee table without consent, and the waitress didn't care to clean it up.

That was how we met: in that little diner at three in the morning, somewhere between Asscracknowhere and Getmeoutofhere. I was sitting in a booth, carving star charts into the linoleum table top with my finger nails, and when I looked up you were standing there with two cups of coffee and the moon in your hair.

“Orion's Belt?” you asked me and sat down without asking.

“He's my favorite,” I replied and took the coffee. “A warrior immortalized in the stars, forever in battle with Scorpio, the two destined to fight forever yet never meet each other face to face.”

“How tragic.” When you spoke your lips were fireballs; your eyes were falling stars, and your voice was attempting desperately to reach the surface of some far off planet, only to burn up in the atmosphere as nothing but smoke and water.

That was when it happened. The butterflies in my stomach punched some bad chicken noodle soup, and I vomited all over the table. It smelled like raspberries and rum, and I groaned and the waitress groaned and you laughed.

“That's what the center of our universe smells like, you know,” you told me as you helped me into the bathroom. “Raspberries and rum. Can you imagine? Here, I'll help you wash your face.”

“I'm sorry you had to see that,” I mumbled from behind the wet paper towel pressed to my face. I will always remember what you said to me then.

“Don't be. The glass is half full.”

We made love once on the dirty mattress in the basement, and then we were planets colliding. We were separate worlds brought together by forces beyond our control, and every time our skin touched we shattered, exploding in each others' wake. With every caress-and every lack there of-we became smaller, until it was just you smoking your cigarette with the sheets falling off your hips and me sitting there with nothing left to say.

But despite the fact that we became smaller, it became apparent after awhile that we never stopped existing. I realized that rather that being a planet broken into a thousand tiny pieces, you had turned me into a thousand tiny planets.

I dared to tell you this, and you replied in a voice like sugar and cockroaches, “The glass is half empty.”

It died down after awhile. There was no more coffee, no more butterflies. I drew star charts alone. I would tip toe downstairs to find you sleeping and crouch down beside you, finally too afraid to touch you, and whisper things into your ear.

“What strange power in the universe has caused you to pull so far away fro me that you have become both the unmovable wall and the unstoppable force, you sick, black hole of a man?”

And you opened your eyes with the calmness of dead space and told me, “The glass simply is.”

That was the moment I realized that was all we were: a universe thrown up by a little girl with a love sick stomach. There were no words between us, no regrets, no goodbyes. I lied next to you, the smell of your cigarette lulling me to sleep, and when I woke up you were gone, and I knew you wouldn't be coming back.

And I told myself, “The glass isn't.”

I couldn’t tell you then, but I think I can tell you now: thank you for teaching me that when stars die, they don’t always explode.