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Quintessence w4w
I rode past your parents' house the other day. I thought maybe you'd come back from Virginia, come back home for a time. I felt you somehow, so I rode my shoddy bike more than twenty miles into Buffalo on a whim, hoping for a chance to see you, just to see you. All the while bearing in mind that it would accomplish nothing. We could not simply say hello, embrace warmly- even a friendly wave much out of the question. Just an awkward but sorrowful stare from one pair of eyes to another, for a second or two. A fleeting moment in time. I wanted to see something there, in that little "Community" your parents live in, that could connect me- I needed to see your mother, your not-so-little-anymore little brother, your father and sister next door, anything that would somehow bring me closer to you. But I saw nothing, no one home. I was met with the wind, and silence. I turned away, went back the way I came in, and directly in my field of viewwas that derelict Midas shop. I couldn't help but see the connection between the way I was feeling and that abandoned building. I rode around the city for several hours, taking careful precaution in avoiding any of your past residences when we were kids (I had almost forgotten how many you had). It would have only hurt that much more to see them, and to remember the memories we had in each house. I thought often of our teenage years together. The wild, reckless youth. How could we know the consequences of our intimacy then- our careless yet seemingly natural progression from being friends into being lovers. How could we have known that things were already mounting against us? That the price of falling would have such far-reaching effects? For many hours I pedaled and pedaled until I could go no further. I left the city at the close of the day. I left dehydrated, delirious, and destitute. It was only today that I finally broke down and cried for you, for us. I had not cried since I told my wife what we had done. Even then, I had not given myself any time to mourn the loss of you. Today, I had finally admitted to myself how much it hurt to know that maybe this time was the last time. Maybe the end of last summer was the final time we would ever reconnect again. I admitted to myself that I may never see you again. I admitted to myself the pain of losing you. My one true best friend. Gone. I recognized that maybe I would never know you again. I cried with the raw and pure intensity of a child. Salty tears ran freely and fiercely from my eyes as if they, too, could feel the pain, and longed for escape, release. I tried to understand how two people could be so connected, yet be destined to fail together, every time, many times. As friends, as lovers, as friends, as lovers, as friends, as friends- over and over, and even more still, over again. I cannot come to peace with it. I was thinking of the repercussions of love. How can something so beautiful never be so. I wished that I could go back and undo our ascension from friendship into relationship, so at least maybe I could still have you today, maybe we would still be able to keep our friendship from the past until now. Maybe i could still have you. I tried to explain this to my wife, the way i feel about all that has happened, and all of this, but some things between people are solely felt. Something is happening chemiy that cannot be fully understood nor be put into words. Like describing color to a blind and dreamless being. Or explaining beautiful music to a person born deaf to the world. I could not properly convey the rupture I feel in my heart. She held me as if i were going to shake apart at any second. It was all she could do to console my broken and sobbing body. I am left with this, in the solitude of the night, before I may go to bed and dream of my transgressions: I feel so very small. Miniscule, as a pinprick in the sun. I feel as though I am a desolate drop of rain among infinite others. It is waning and translucent, slowly running down a dirty window pane, as it finally rolls off and evaporates, as a vapor, into the atmosphere.
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