the "Boyfriend"

It starts small. A good friend cuddles me when I come to the city to visit, staying in his bed. He and I have had this dance, the same stupid dance that boys and girls tend to have with one another when they get in close proximity of one another.  We've decided (or at least awkwardly concluded) that we should be friends... but within this friendship, we kept intimacy. When it makes sense, we spend time like this, in each others arms, talking about life... One evening on the seaport, a passerby smiled widely and called out how lovely and romantic we looked. We laughed, she couldn't have been further from the truth. And yet.. there is something about a man's strong arms wrapping a girl's body, her shoulders tired from holding up all this pride... A small break, an interruption in the solitude.

Another friend, crush turned platonic, talks to me on the phone for hours, checks in from time to time to see how I am doing, and joins me out on the town. We look good together, but we're not together. We are wingmen to each other, encouraging when it counts and scarce when its necessary. We did New Years at Jimmy Valentine's - sharing the open bar ticket that eventually had me solidly puke. He patiently waited until I was strong enough to walk straight, before our cab hailed journey home.

Then how about the Indian boy with the burning eyes and long dark hair, who walked into my life just as I was moving and loved me up and down for those long lasting day after day goodbyes? Ten days, insta-boyfriend, with an intensity that matched mine, chess and champagne, sunshine and rooftop pools, offering helpful advice, keeping me company as I packed, holding me tight as I slept - yes, that lover stopped my heart for a bit, that beautiful short bit, before another house of cards collapsed in the wake of my move. But we had each other for a moment there, and the world felt right, if only for the smallest, shortest bit.

The best are the men who have lovers and wives, and who still look at me with eyes that seem starved. I keep my distance, it just doesn't seem right to entertain anything like this seriously, and yet, I feel pity for both them and for me. We are all so alone it seems; whether one is with someone or not... and sometimes it just makes sense, to offer what we can to each other in these lonely moments. So yes, I'll make the journey to JFK for a 2 hour visit with the object of a long ago (almost) innocent two week romance from my study abroad in Prague nine years back, even though he is married now, with a small child. And I'm sorry that I couldn't help but kiss him back when he leaned in, at that last stolen hug after our final goodbye.

Sometimes I want to do an art piece, about this army of love. A face for every boy, a mounted wall of squares, moments, memories. The Brazilian from the pool who offered himself up to me on my bathroom floor, the Venezuelan who rushed me to the fed-ex field at the airport when all other locations were closed as I desperately tried to send out my grad school applications, the Gypsy who taught me how to love, and still offers his kind advice, the Persian who burns my heart inside out in anger with his false smiles, and insistent impatience, the Egyptian who looked at me with  too intense eyes of tomorrow, the man with the hat who stands by helpfully handing me tools as I take on a toilet repair with determination, the Iraninan musician who cooks and cleans my house because he is just that broke. The walks home, the sleep-overs, the disclaimers, the forehead kissers, the hand holders, the hell raisers, the movie cuddles, the all nighters. I have a boyfriend, it sometimes occurs to me, in all of these different men. He is just splintered, a kaleidoscopic cascade of parts, spread out over this or that boy. Laterally diffused over space and time, in the present, in the past, in the memories.

There they are: lovers, fuckers and friends... up and down my landscape of love. In and out, off and on. And I... you know, who the fuck am I? I am a little girl. And I am a bored temptress. And I am hungry for love. And despite this I am also afraid of it. It literally makes my heart hurt, to try and navigate this kind of inner contradiction and self sacrificing sentiment. I take these little bits because I am hungry for something serious and soulful, and they sustain me in the smallest way, but not without accompanying seeds of disillusionment. But I wonder why it is such a crapshoot, looking to build something solid and singular, sexy and sweet, out of just one of the many, many, many? Why are we so determined to keep all these options open, to remain untied, to keep backdoors open, to rush or to drag, to dominate or submit, at the expense of everything gorgeous and pure that could exist in its stead? I am not without my own impatience and anxieties, but I don't think I am alone in this. We are a schizophrenic lot when it comes to this love riddled world, so is it any wonder that it leaves us worse for the wear, the harder we try?

It troubles me that I see so much of this, and yet maintain a basket empty of the answers. All I can do is walk, keep walking, right? Head high, pride in tact, eyes wide open, heart tightly shut. And beyond all these sorrowful dramatics and hopeless romantic antics, I am reminded of a field in the words of Rumi -

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.