A Love Note

We were sitting on a park bench, me feeling very cold, you feeling very light. I think maybe it was February, early into the semester. You asked if it would bother me if you smoked. I had just written a poem about the wispy clouds of cigarette smoke, so I said no. The only thing I really knew about you at the time was that you had recited a poem entirely in Spanish, and that I was intrigued when you looked at me. One day you drank tap water out of an empty flower vase you had found down the hall from our classroom. I couldn’t stop finding reasons to call you fascinating.

You told me about how you skipped a semester at school to work some menial labor job in a city somewhere. I didn’t blame you—how could any of us really know what we were supposed to do anyway? I was just grateful that I would have you at my school for another semester.

We went into a cold room in one of the nearest buildings. You told me about the time you had held a jar with a brain in it, and I can’t remember if I believed you. Somehow we ended up in a small room with a piano, and you played something for me, as if I hadn’t already fallen in love with the idea of you. In the wake of nights where it was all I could do not to leave my room and just keep walking, you gave me a little piece of magic.

I remember you telling me I had a distinct writing voice. I had just learned what that means, and you had just finished describing doing cocaine off your cell phone screen. I can’t say I’ve ever valued a compliment more.

I still have one of your poems taped to the wall of my bedroom. Every time I read it, I wonder if you might’ve kissed my cheek differently, had you known me now instead of then. I wonder if I wouldn’t have been so afraid. I wonder if I would have needed to be.

When I think of you, I think of how sad it is that life goes on. It isn’t easy to describe, but I’ve never felt so transported as I did with you. Maybe you weren’t doing it on your own, but I remember every second of that night. I only knew you as you revealed yourself through quick little words. And maybe you only knew me for how I listened.

Perhaps you weren’t for just me. Perhaps you were. We’ll never know. For now, I’ll picture you in Paris. I hope the city sings to you.