(a portrait of loneliness)

The truth could be that there is no one left in this space but me. I think you can sense as much when we meet. The waiters conceal their surprise. They have stopped asking me if anyone will be joining me ages ago, long before I stopped asking myself the same question. But now you are here.

I imagine you will return with me tonight. We would sleep together because this is important. Maybe you will say that you can’t sleep on the sofa, there are mosquitoes, or it is too hot. So I’ll scoot over and we will sleep like babies. You will remind me how someone else’s skin feels like; warm, sweaty, freckled, scarred, cheeky veins teasing me with the numerous paths to your heart. Sans perversion, sans invasion, it’s been awhile and I don’t have it in me. You can’t fill the capacity. Maybe you don’t even want to. But I don’t dwell on that, I trust you will do what you can.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter what you do. The same thing will happen:

I’ll take what you spare, and orchestrate a sense of shared presence.
I will drink until I cannot remember the rest of the night. (this is also important)
I will wake up to the familiar arrangement of bed and sunlight, only that it isn’t entirely familiar, because you have contributed to it overnight. No matter how small, I imagine my space is altered by you somehow, even if it is the position of my toothbrush.
I will smile sleepily in bed, thinking you are in the next room,
trying not to cough
silently fixing yourself something to eat while I am in the shower, and you clean up so the kitchen looks untouched. You will take up very little space. But your gift to me is to have it taken nonetheless.

When I am clean & conscious I step out of the shower, and find that you are gone.

a. you have made a clean exit.
b. you have left overnight, not even sharing my sleep.
c. you never came over at all.