Last night, I stood in the rain, underneath Chinese red lanterns and a dying neon sign that read Siam Lotus Supreme. It was pouring and I stood there with a half-finished cigarette hoping you would show up when you said you would, that you would appear just around the corner of the alley and take me somewhere warm with blankets and hot chocolate, somewhere very close but that would feel far away.
I hoped a lot of things last night, but I came to the realization that you were never who you said you were. You were never the man I made you out to be. And deep down I think I knew this--when you said you read my books, but you could never hold a conversation about them or quote any of my funny lines. And I was funny, Goddamnit. I was very funny.
I reapplied my lipstick believing somehow deep down that that would make you show, that somehow making myself look better would be the catalyst in a string of broken promises from you. But this was another soured expectation, another predetermined disappointment.
The time was passing slowly because of the frequency with which I checked my watch, so I took the watch and held it out in the rain to see how long it would take to die from water to the galleys. Seven minutes and four seconds is when it stopped ticking for me.
Which is exactly when I stopped smoking that cigarette and looked excitedly at the light in a third story apartment that belonged to someone else.
Sometimes we don't need to count to ten to move on. Sometimes we have to value who we are and demand form an unresponsive world our wants and desires. Maybe just maybe the world will allow a brief respite!!!!!!!!!
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