Tonight after haunted days of painful painlessness a siege of sirens comes to serenade, seduce and succor… to simplify… to supply me with solace as I drown beneath waves of mutilation (with apologies to Pixies).
My Aaron sings to me his soothing tones which are less like music; more like verse… strumming my ribcage beneath salt water seas, we swim naked for hours through tears we’ve not shed.
The other Aaron, the Aaron between us, he haunts through photograph, text and memory, echoing across time and geography to be one with us again.
There are naked hungry men beneath those shadowed depths, those sombre shades of green lit by melancholy movie soundtracks.
The mermen dive for pleasure and breathe truthfully through gilled fantasy lies which excite and entice me before dragging me down to my death.
In amber and glow, through fogged glass of sunken ships she is weeping her mermaid crocodile tears.
This is not truly Jamie; this being is not my sister or my therapist. The former doesn’t speak to me, even on land and the latter will soon be lost to me – just as I left her (unforgivably) in the haste of my waking nightmare.
She will forgive me this unforgivable sin.
She is strong but she is wounded – like me, underwater – like me, and she will rise again – like me.
Could this truly be her after all?
I smile and wave goodbye to her but she can’t see me until Thursday.
Mermaid simulacrum smiles just the same… but here my visions come to an end.
The pained expression as he wrapped his arms around his head, as if to hide from the words he knew he must say; the risk he must take.
The tears that fell from his beautiful eyes as he confessed that the heart of us had been lost.
The strength that I had never possessed in the past, unfamiliar as it surged to the fore…
Was it possible that I had built a temple out of my shattered childhood only to have him ripped away from me?
The way we barely breathed as we collapsed in random bursts of suffering, exquisite, aching pain of love gone wrong, gone sour, gone ignored too long and now barely recognizable.
We lay together that night, together, yet cleaved in two.
Yet we never degraded, never cursed, never accused, never, never, never completely surrendered to shame or fear.
This hardship, this torment was honest and brave, and long overdue; I know that now and I thank him even as I yearn for my other half.
For 10 days and 11 nights I have fought for the mere hope, the slightest chance that a lost romance might be resurrected.
I don’t want to be crushed by the loss of him or bereft of his touch.
I fight for my own survival with lessons that may save me, yet beyond myself I yearn for the forgotten look in his eyes, the curve of his lips, the taste of his joy, satisfaction, surprise and that virginal lust for passions met in kind.
I want to give him what in ignorance I have so long denied him, he that I treasure most, he that I cherish above all others.
His need, his confession, his longing has inspired a sea change within me.
And if he might only look there in my culpable remorseful eyes, perhaps he will find what it is that he can no longer find on his own.
With every glance I seek to say:
I am here. And I love you. And I am in love with you. And I curse the day that I ever made you feel you weren’t worthy of my best.
I will extend myself to the best of my ability, beyond what I have done for any other love, any other lover, any other man, woman, parent or friend.
This I swear with a glad heart.
For you have made me a better man, and a greater man than you would be an impossible quest that I would never dream of or wish to accept.
Find me Aaron. Find me.
I am waiting in the dark to lead us into the light.
