Blissboy

"I want to smoke cigarettes with you," he said.

It was two Augusts ago, I was sprawled on my bed in the torrid night, wearing nothing but a telephone. And the other end was 300 miles away.

"I want to smoke cigarettes with you," he said, his voice full of yearning. I thought it was the sweetest thing I'd ever heard. Now I realize it meant he refused to have me in his life, but he was willing to die with me.

And now New Year's -- seven days ago. My friends and I were planning on going to the Good Life, an annual tradition. The four of us never made it. The mood in my apartment had been chill, candles, dinner, an acoustic guitar making the rounds, warm quiet. A crowded bar no longer sounded like a good idea. We decided to roam the city with our cameras and capture the night. But it was cold and my body was filled with searing pain.

I didn't want to be standing there when the hour turned to midnight. The streets were silent; not another soul in the world. We were standing outside the dirty, deserted Porter Sq. parking lot, across the street from my old apartment, the Nightmare on Elm St. I hit bottom there four years ago. I used to stand on the sidewalk after emptying the tequila bottles down my throat and launch them at the streetlights that glared through the bars on my window all night. The curb is still riddled with broken glass.

We were standing outside that apartment when it became 2004, and for one full minute I held my breath. It wasn't conscious, but there was some ridiculous dream that he would call. That we could do that again. That I would be at the Good Life like last year, and he would call me at 11:59 and tell me that he wanted to spend New Year's with me but this was the best he could do. It would be noon in Hawaii, and he'd say he wanted me there -- wanted to smoke cigarettes on the beach with me.

It's been almost a year since we last spoke.

It was suddenly 2004 and a lone guy rode his bike by in the frigid night -- a random cook from Picante, and while my three friends called out, "Happy New Year!" I was standing there on Elm St. with 30 seconds of breath left.

He said he wanted to curl up somewhere and stare into me for hours. He said he wanted to sneak out in the middle of the night and meet at a sketchy diner. He'd be waiting, reading Stanley Kubrick's biography when I came into the restaurant, and we'd drink coffee from thick-lipped white ceramic mugs. We could put our writing desks across from one another and compose until our brains exploded on one another. We shared words and music at a velocity no other human being could survive. He said, "Leave the light on in Boston for me." He said I was the one he could spend the rest of his life with. He said a lot of things.

We were doomed and insane from the second we met. I have never felt that before -- like I was meeting myself. It wasn't a feeling of "I've met you," but a feeling of "I've found you." There was no getting to know. We knew. We were starved for one another, never satiated. But I see now that he was the one who was starving us. Even when we were in the same bed, 300 miles and one fragile, oblivious girl stood between us.

I deserved more than life as his closet secret. I loved him openly. He could not return the favor. I started feeling like the secretary who honestly believes the boss she's fucking is going to leave his wife. I've seen the movies. He never does.

So I shoved him away with my broken hands, back into hers.

And tonight I know he's in my city. I heard his voice last night. I can feel him walking my streets. When I'm in New York, I know I'm walking his. Five million people there and I know we would find each other if we wanted to. It's unnerving. There's this churning sickness in my stomach that I can't get away from.

I am still consumed by him. By that unconscious dream. The one that left me blue from sixty seconds of disbelief on New Year's Eve. Sixty seconds, 300 miles, 437 days; they're all the same distance.