When I was a child, my parents took me to the Grand Canyon.  I stood at the edge and looked over into the giant crevice.  It was beautiful.  It was stunning.  I insisted we leave immediately.  I knew we would have to leave eventually, we couldn’t stay here with this beauty for ever.   Every moment we stood there was laden with the understanding we would have to return to the dull, faceless place we came from.  Let’s skip the waiting and get on with it then.  No point in taking too much time with something that must be taken away.

I wish he would hurry up and leave, I don’t know how much longer I can stand knowing he will leave me some day.  He should just go now.

Shortly after we starting sleeping together, I found myself awake next to him.  His back was against my chest, my head resting on his shoulder.  Light from somewhere played in the blond hairs of his forearm.  I rejoiced in how they lay in a smooth, uniform pattern, rising away from his skin and grasping the light.  He woke, looked at me through unfocused eyes.  He smiled, kissed my forehead and stumbled to the bathroom.

He’s asleep now, sprawled on the mattress like a body dropped from many floor above;   one arm flung across a pillow, his wild mane of blond hair splashed across another.  He’s beautiful, this one.  I marvel at him every time I touch him.  His shoulders, his back, his ass, his legs.  He exceeds what I could have dreamed so he can’t be something from my imagination.  He doesn’t seem to care that I stare at him.  I don’t think he knows how much that I do.

The air conditioner drones in the background.  The vinyl of my chair sticks to my legs and back.  When I shift, the vinyl is cold from the refrigerated air.  The light from the television jumps back and forth across his body.  I sit, and stare.  I should smoke, I think.  It would make for a more dramatic scene.

I love this one, too.  I love him madly, deeply, crazily.  He never leaves my mind, he’s always there on the fringes, his touch influencing each of my thoughts.  I lay next to him and run my hand across his skin, feeling the texture of skin and hair and time and I want to crawl inside of him.  I want to take our bodies and merge them into a single body, where I can float from his heart to his head and experience what it is to be part of him.  When I think of him leaving, something just below my sternum starts to ache and I begin to have trouble breathing.  And, yet, still, I know he will leave.  And it will be bad.  It will be terrible.

I want him to go now.  I want him to leave and have it done with.  I cannot wait a week, I cannot wait a year, I cannot wait ten years or even a lifetime with him.  Because every moment of that week, of that year, of that lifetime will be filled with the terrible knowledge that he will indeed leave and then there will be only the void where he was. 

Sitting on a bus, I turned to him and looked for a good, long time.  When he turned to me, I asked him if he loved me.  He smiled, put his hands on either side of my head, and kissed my forehead.  All the while he said nothing.
It’s late.  So late that the sound of traffic outside has stopped.  There are no footsteps of other guests passing on the walkway outside the room.  Only the air conditioner and his occasional snore.

I get up, stand next to the bed for a moment, and then lie next to him.  Without waking, he adjust and curls into the welcoming form of my body.  I lightly run my fingers over the path of hair that leads from his stomach to his chest.  Oh, I love this one. 

I close my eyes and breath the warmth of his body.  I feel the rise and fall of his breathing.  It is safe and joyous here.  I feel the exhaustion of the day, the exhaustion of my affection, rise over me and I fall asleep.

Was it a car horn, a door slamming or something else that wakes me?  The sun is slanting through the blinds and the room is too warm.  The air conditioner has stopped.  And he is gone.  I lay in the bed alone with only pillows to mark where he was.

There it is.  He’s gone.  Better now than later.  My sternum starts to ache and the sadness rolls over me. What do I do now?

His things are still here – there his brush by the sink, the suitcase open by the dresser.  He is forgetful and he has left them.  In his rush to leave, his desire to leave without waking me or fighting, he left all this behind.  I pick up the brush and run my fingers over the bristles; some of his hair is still caught between them.  Then this is what it will be, this souvenir of this person that I loved.  This is what I will have to remember his presence.

I walk to the door and open it, the spotlight of sunshine knocks me back into the room.  I look out.  I hear a shout and look down.  There he is in the pool, waving up at me.  He dives under the water and slides along the bottom of the pool in a silent arc.

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