Here We Go Again

By Paul Ford

I broke up with a girl and had to write for the sympathetic Internet audience about my deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep feelings.

This is for me and for strangers. Freedom breathing hot on my neck, taste of loss, back itching, love a flower aching to bloom. Sex wasn't soulful, something we did when we slept close.

Goodbye! I loved you in our spark-less love. Two sides of the same coin, that was you and I together; we couldn't face each other, set spinning on a table, long-distance even up close. I don't regret a moment of the peaceful and dormant list of days, September, 1998 to May, 1999. It was so brave at its beginning, two strangers meeting, and so ripe to end tonight, to be plucked from the bough and set down on the table, the apple of our affection.

I'm sure I'll swing down into the lonelies, a few days from now, but now I feel something old returning, some part of myself I choked down--the laughing fool, the glib and bouncing child--and I don't want to deny it. You must feel free too, and good for you.

No. She won't either. Kid, you'll always wonder.

I was supposed to go up to Rochester this weekend. I liked the train ride, hanging out with her cat, escaping the New York sweatbox. I have to send you your bra and skirt, and take your name off the frequent-call list on my cell.

She is free and as for me.....

I am free to find the sleeping self, denied for a while, and shake it awake.