for B.

You gave me a picture of you, in Tibet. The one in your blog. I hope you don't mind that I am writing about it now. It is my favorite picture of you. There is something about your face, in that picture, that makes me feel warm. And to me, in this picture, you look the most like you. Like the picture of you as a baby that you posted. I hold these so tightly in my heart, you can not imagine. My time with you; I felt so warm, so deeply happy, and so uncertain. It was like torture, in a way, because of my fear. I remember that first summer, I went away to the mountains. And each day I wanted just to hear your voice, your soft words. And my phone would not work there; it was too remote, and there was no phone in the house I was renting. And every day I would try to call you, and once or twice I got through. And then I had nothing to say. "I just wanted to say hi," I would say, sounding so casual. What I should have said was "I want you so badly that my skin is on fire, that my hair stands on end, that my eyes turn red, that my toes curl." (Even writing this now, my heart pounds in my chest, and I feel dizzy--and I wonder why why why)

I am always most fearful when I am happy because while I want so badly for it to last, I know that it will give way to my usual grey sadness. Maybe that is what scared you away from me. And I have no regrets at all, for I have had such happiness. I wonder, at times, if you have any regrets. But I suspect that you are not one to regret things. And I am not either. But I do ask questions. I asked too much of you, for you. But it was my need, please understand. And the idea that you could help me. I no longer know if that last thing is true. And yet, more times than you can count, I go back to that time and think, "what if?" What if I had said nothing? What if I did not reveal my need, so raw and so deep? What then? This is not regret, understand. It is something else. And to this day, sometimes when I think of you my heart wells up inside my chest and I can't really breathe and my head hurts and my eyes sting. This is the mark you left on me. And soon after I met you, a brilliant singer I once knew threw herself out of the window of her apartment on the upper west side. Shortly before she died, she recorded a song that haunts me, and I am listening to it now:

As we eye the blue horizon's bend,
Earth and sky appear to meet, and end.
But it's merely an illusion--
Like your heart and mine,
there is no sweet conclusion.
I can see, no matter how near you'll be
you'll never belong to me
but I can dream, can't I?
Can I pretend that I'm locked in the bend
of your embrace;
for dreams are just like wine
and I am drunk with mine.
I'm aware
My heart is a sad affair.
There's much disillusion there
But I can dream, can't I?
Can I adore you
although we are oceans apart?
I can't make you open your heart
But I can dream, can't I?

And I was afraid to tell you, because I was afraid I would fall apart. You see, for me, one who so often contemplates my end, this kind of news shakes me to the core, because it is so close...So so much I kept inside, when with you. Why did I do that? I was afraid, I wanted you too much, I wanted to freeze time, I wanted to die, I wanted to live forever, I wanted to be the bird (you called me) and spend my time, all of it, soaring high above the earth, looking downward as if from heaven.