The air was profound that night as I breathed it in. It was two-twenty in the morning and I could see fate written in the lines of darkness that filled my room. It was empty and cold. I could have covered up and rolled over but I knew that I wouldn’t sleep. Instead I got up. I walked to the window and opened it. The air outside was colder still. I remember how the wind blew the white curtains and the world outside was bright. All I could see was the moonlight reflecting off of snow.
***
Down on my knees the very first time there was all her hair in my mouth. She was trimmed and neat, but it felt like hair was everywhere. It was not what I expected. She kept forcing herself up against my mouth, holding me down saying please please please. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew she was happy because she kept saying my name…Jon….Jon….Jon. I kept going until her grip went slack. Afterwards I got up and laid next to her with my arms around her stomach. My heart was pounding, racing and my entire body burned with what I had just done. My throat felt like I had just swallowed an entire lime, all at once.
***
I brushed off the snow off of the windowsill and leaned out. The sky was cloudless and the moon shone like a lamp. I felt my stress bleed away. Maybe it was taken off into the night by the chill that blew into me. I felt like myself again.
I thought, “You are just a thought. A piece of pollen that drifts on the wind. You are a thought of things too perfect to actually exist, too lovely to actually be inside of me. You exemplify a mood, a perfection, a distinct feeling that is too nebulous to get a good grip on, like a phantom drifting in and out of the outer edges of consciousness.”
I thought, “I want to be remembered.”
In lower case letters I thought. “I want to be loved.”
***
How does a man love a woman? With attention? Money? Conversation? I didn’t know how to love her in the way she needed. Our time together became less about adventure and exploring one another and more about going through the motions. We still went out but the need had faded. It’s not enough to feel. It is not enough to need.
***
I wake up from dream after dream thinking about substantiality. Each time a layer of me is peeled back, though I do not know if I am the surgeon or the patient. I wake each time to the sensation of being a ceaseless Russian doll.
***
I looked out of that window and wanted to leap.
I leapt.
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