April 30, 2019

9:15am

Tokyo, Japan

L (You) –

I got lost in the smallest of your makeup.
I walked by a stranger yesterday when coming out of the Ueno station
near the Spanish restaurant with the half-decent paella and there was
this scent. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t cologne or an oil, but probably a
really good soap, and because scent is the sense most linked to memory, I
suddenly remembered everything about that day on my balcony when my
face tried to find its way into your neck. You were almost late to work
and I was so far behind on a deadline, devouring you wouldn’t have made
much of a difference. It would have been quick. There’s a difference
between the exhaustion in your eyes when mixing the beats with the
vocals isn’t as easy as you thought it’d be and the exhaustion in your
eyes when you just want to be done with life. Your words trail when
you’re talking about things you love. When talking about people you
love, your words are crisp, like you’ve been thinking of how to phrase
them all day. I’d know your hand wherever you placed it. Your fingers
are fat and so are mine. Until you, I’d never been kissed with an
intensity that made me question if I could be loved so much. Your bottom
lip flinches when it’s in my mouth and your top lip does not come to
its rescue.

Your fears – and I know the scariest of them, I think – are yours to tell, not mine.

I know how you like your salmon’s skin to
crunch, but so does the chef. The chef doesn’t know how slow your
blinking becomes after the first bite. He doesn’t know your
almost-thick, slightly-thin eyebrows disappear into your forehead when
you’re excited, and the bags you’ve grown under your eyes become so much
cuter. You don’t want to work so much, but your goals won’t let you
sleep like the others. I was awake, too. I was across town, across the
ocean, across the room. I was awake, too, wondering how it was possible
to exist in the same space at the same time and not explode.

I
checked on your soul – your gristle and your marrow. Your father died
and a continent away, I wore the ugly shirt I almost wore the day I met
him. He fed me, even after catching me staring at you with an intensity
normally reserved for stalkers or men who feel they’ve finally found
home. I knew you were tired because you hadn’t bothered changing out of
your sweats and a few times, you held my hand longer than you normally
did in public spaces. Your sisters fed me later and filled me in on your
childhood. I learned your inflections and each time your tone changed, I
knew why. You gave up on a fork early and I could smell the stewed meat
on your fingers when you’d touch my face. I knew you were going to tell
me you loved me that night. I was prepared this time to say it back,
but not first.

Your head lowers slowly toward something
soft or toward me when you’ve given your wall a rest, and you talk about
all the stuff. All the things. I tell you in those moments you are fine
– hoping you believe it as much as I do. I listen because I love how
your skin by your temples pull down over your cheeks and how your mouth
and tongue form words – your accent an architect of intricacies. I once
watched a colorblind man put on special glasses to see the colors of an
Upper West Side, New York sunset for the first time. And you, wrapped in
newness and in stories you’ve been dying to share with me, rivet my
eyes. You become sunset and I the color blind man, not wanting to remove
the shades.

A man sitting far from the path I was on
in Yoyogi Park beneath trees blocking all light used fallen leaves for
padding and folded pieces of paper into odd little complicated shapes. I
wondered who made you. How long does it take to make such a complicated
thing? He handed me what he said – in pretty good English – was his
only Goliath Frog “because too difficult to make.” I paid him fairly. I
carried it in my hand all day to keep it from tearing or falling apart,
fearing I’d never be able to put it back together.

I
walk, moving my fingers across the folds, laughing at myself for being
resentful of those who shout obscenities – though they are probably lies
– like, “I get over people quickly.” I’m resentful because I can’t.
Because I write and know things only a writer knows. Because the
smallest of your make up is stuck in corners my fingers are too fat to
enter. Because I was told to never use “Because” to begin a sentence.”
Because.

I am fine, too.