Reflections on all those men I said good bye to.

My body looked so different in those shards of new light, all beaming in from our open window circumstances. Your body looked different too. In a late coming, moment of tenderness, you wrapped your arm around my back, your long fingers resting on my shoulder. In that moment, I was no longer embarrassed of my dozens of freckles and clumsy scars. It felt like you drew them all yourself, tracing each one when I finally gave in, gave my body to you as a happy easel. Imagine what we could have painted.. I could have been a sculptor, wielding our lips together..connect all my dots. You found some joy in speaking, something you long had hated. In those hasty nibbles on each other's ear lobes, we wanted so badly to listen.

"I don't like feeling things."

"I don't like talking about um."

"Lets fuck again."

After all the back and forths between us, I never expected how content I'd feel, just listening to you talk about the weather. Your voice sounded so different when you buried your head in my neck. When I dropped my chin down, every mistake we might have made, just muffled out. Your weather forecast drove me wild. More so then all our early morning text messages.

"I wish I would have found you sooner. I would have probably stayed at your house forever. I think I would have fallen in love with you."

"Knowing my luck, you would have fallen out of love with me just as fast. We're never gonna find out now are we?"

"I'm so tired of saying good-bye all the time."

"And I've never been good at good-byes, so can't we call it something else? Can't we just kiss like nothing is going to change? Can we just have till we meet agains? I just want some subjectivity...why does good bye have to be so certain, so permanent, so long? Can't we just meet again?"

You smiled. I could have spent hours, making faces, tickling your knees, determined to get what I wanted from you, that soft spot in your voice when you smiled at me.

"We will always have the songs huh? What am I going to do when I hear them again? Can I stop myself from running to you, slow dancing alone..does that work?'

One last hug, I wanted to disappear into your chest. I wanted to start a new life in your bed but you didn't have one anymore. Mine was so far away and too familiar.

"Here's to you having the good life."

"Till we meet again."