Thank you, Collins. I just... Thanks. You were the only man she ever loved. You know that? Ever.
Yeah, she fell in love before. There was those men. But in the end falling in love is just that- falling. Before, we were both like that. We'd hold each others hands and help each other off the floor from where we had slipped and trudged on- down but not out.
Yeah, there were those guys, Collins. Those guys with their smiles and touches and their coolness. There are those guys with their air of complete nonchalance, as if their too cool to love and too cool to understand. Things like compassion are beneath them. They're those guys that call you to bed and hover over you like Greek Gods, as if someone should praise heave and earth to be breathing in their air and living in their aura.
There were those guys who cared to much. They'd sit and they'd care until nothing was completely left of them. Men who cared about the details. What did the green skirt mean, Angel? You said you'd be here at four, Angel. Where are you, Angel? Soon, they'd get frustrated, and yell- louder and more suddenly then expected. And what was left of them, by then, but a level head and warm arms? When you take that away, you expose a monster and a slave to the numbers and the technicalities. She ran from those men, stopped answering their calls and stopped seeing them- half out of a naive fear and half out of lack of interest for them. Soon, the mathematic equation worked out in their heads and they stopped calling.
There were those guys who brought with them sexual healing and a warm, plastic sort of love. They were desperate, needy sort of men who knew she was just as desperate and needy as she was- as everyone was. Those were the men who touched softly and kissed gently. Those were the men she almost wanted to love- deeply, sincerely. Together, they built up their defenses, cradled, held and comforted each other. But slowly they both recovered- they ran where they had once walked. Soon, they grew not so gentle, not so soft. These kind of men would just walk away with a letter or a brisk kiss, showing no sign they were ever there but a new, longer, list of scars that called upon another man to heal them.
There were those guys who held too tight and hit too hard. There were those guys that forced and probed and screamed and never stopped when they were told to stop. There were those guys that forced her against walls and took her just so they could. Took her, Collins, because they just needed something to take.
We don't know which one of those guys gave her AIDS, Collins. We'll never know. We'll never know which one really killed her, Collins.
But, you know what I think? I think all of those men killed her. No, not a quick sort of death, but slow, painful one. Something that never really started and never really ended. It just happened, and we both realized it far too late.
But out of all those guys, all those fucks and all those "I love yous," and all of that shit I watched her go through before, none of those guys were ever you, Collins.
Thank you.