6.2.17

I had written too many words

on the subject, and none had

gotten through to you.

I needed action.

What a sickening thought: I

was becoming (or already

had become) one of those men

whose life was defined by the

nonsense of written language

and whose tongue often felt weak

and sloppy while intoxicated. Look,

this is not another set of self-

indulgent words. This is an apology.

When you left me and I watched you

leave the single room of our house,

into the rain, into the night whose

darkness erased you and turned the row

of streetlights above your head into

shards of light as bright as launched-

but-not-detonated fireworks, I wept.

I’m sorry beth. I’m sorry for trapping you

in a room, in a darkness you never asked for

and coming at you with my whiskey mouth,

I’m sorry, for this, and for other things, I

am sorry. I know now that when you said

“I’m lonely but I don’t want to kiss you,”

that I should not have responded with “how lonely

are you? Because I feel like I’m gonna die if

we don’t form some kind of connection.”

I’ve slept with one person since you’ve been gone,

and it was terrible. Nothing compares to you, beth.

If the darkness has not digested you, please,

please, please return to me. I am where

you left me.

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Written at 11:15 at night, in my office, in Agoura Hills CA.