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we looked so damn good together.

yes or no. go. stay. don’t call me. why haven’t i heard from you? i think he’s depressed. his friend killed himself at this time of  year a few years ago. he’s upset. it’s winter. he’s not noticed that it’s been weeks since the lastime we spoke. months since we saw each other. & he calls me a “friend.”

i’m glad i never fucked him. he’s unstable. unavailable, they’d say in 12 steps. he doesn’t care about anything but getting sex on demand–on his schedule. he doesn’t care to send anything better than mixed messages.

 it doesn’t matter. you want a bengali husband? the Universe said & laughed. Her laugh was playful, sinister, knowing. let me show you your bengali husband.

he’s 28. saturn return. his saturn must be in one of those unbalanced signs. scorpio, leo, gemini. aries. violent, ambivalent. addicted.

he resents his parents. his features take after his mother.

why did he even seek me out? he asked me out, kissed me, got in bed with me & said he wasn’t looking for anything. liar. he cooks dinner for me once & shows me his short temper. repressed rage misdirected at the one who requested him. who prayed for a lover whose skin matched her own shade.

be careful what you beg for. you’ll get it.

rare, sparse conversations full of tension & doubt. you never opened up, let me enter, all because flesh was off limits. not a shred of willpower remains. we can never talk again because if we do, my words will be, “bring some condoms over.”

the ribbed kind.

he wouldn’t tell me when the last time for him was. i’d been celibate for 8 months when we met. he hid everything from me, knowing i’d be disappointed & move on.

let go. leave it behind. it was a good try. but it’s gone as far as it could. i got fucked & left again but this time, no sex to speak of.

i know where my feet are. right here. across the water of the bay, you’ll stay oversexed & underpresent. there are many others. other women who won’t ask where your dick’s been.

breath is even until i forget to keep it going. force myself to relax, to let go.

yeah. i thought i was ready, too.

the first male skin i touched in years. the first lips i kissed after an eternity of silence. when i say goodbye you will play ambiguity, ignorance. those masks that don’t fit me anymore.

the silence has lived too long. no phone calls in months. & the lastime i saw you, i hated what i saw. what i heard. a voice angrily raised above mine; over nothing. a shallow conversation about whether the masa you made tamales with were truly vegan.

you scared me. that’s when i really knew. because i said nothing to put you in your place. because you would have called that “processing.”

mixed messages. silence. a weak excuse. how many months of this?

breathe. exhale him out of my system. see, it’s easy. it gets easier.