These things I remember about you.

You.

In that blue dress you bought over on Bleecker Street that was a tad too big. Straps falling off of your shoulders as you brushed stray strands of honey brown hair out of your eyes. You, laughing, danced to blaring salsa music while I tried to read my newspaper at the kitchen table in your too small apartment. Fingering that silver chain that you'd never dreamed of taking off, you called out to me to join you. And I refused. Went back to reading the paper that I couldn't concentrate on, but I was stubborn then. As stubborn as you were. So, I sat there and read the same line over fifty six times. (While I should have danced with you.) Over the music, I could faintly hear you singing to yourself... "Ba dum ba...dum dum ba...da dum." To this day, I cannot hear a bar of salsa music without my mind repeating back to me your "bad um ba...dum dum ba's."

Our first date. One of those old movie theatres at the edge of the Village that still had curtains drawn across the screens. Ha. Your coat matched that curtain. I had been dating the same girl since high school...and then after a long friendship, you turned my affections. I opened my eyes and look at you clearly for the first time in years. One week later, I found myself telling her that the relationship just wasn't going to work without giving the poor, sweet girl the slightest reason why. You knew this, for we had discussed it. I wanted to be honest and forthright with you always. We walked down the aisle and your hand found mine. I held it for the nine point three seconds it took us to find a place to sit, my heart racing all the while. (I'm not sure if it was from the newness of it all or if it were just you.) You were wearing that pair of ivory-coloured pants with the raised flowered pattern.

No.

I was with you when you bought those over on sale in that little boutique on 5th. The pants were brown...chocolate. As we took our seats twenty five minutes early, the curtain still pulled across the screen, we joked about you dressing to coordinate with the interior of the theatre. And then your face lost its humour, and you asked me most seriously if I was certain. My quick answer was a confident "of course," but I doubt either you or I were convinced by it. I can't say that I was entirely sure then. But I am now. I saw in your eyes a genuineness I'd never before seen and suddenly found myself broken inside your hands. Realizing that you truly care about someone will find a way to knock you sideways. As for me, well, it dropped me to the ground.

But I couldn't let you see that.

You had this bad habit of hiding my keys when you didn't want me to leave. And I had an equally bad habit of not checking my pockets before I'd leave. I'd walk all the way back to my apartment only to realize that I couldn't get it. So, I'd have to walk back to retrieve them. To see you. Clever girl. I walked all the way across town back to your little flat in the Village, grumbling and cursing all the way. When I got there, I'd just hold out my hand and angrily mumble "Keys." You'd hand them over sheepishly and I'd snatch them from your grasp, shove my hands in my pockets, and turn to trudge back home again. But you could never let me without one last kiss, could you? The miles out of my way to walk back to you were worth that one last kiss.

Your grudges were swathed in smoke and silence. It'd sometimes take you a weak to speak to me normally again. Such a quick temper for such a sweet-hearted person. Yet, I probably deserved your anger at least half of the times you gave it to me. Do you remember that one time after our biggest fight? The one that lasted for a mere two hours, but had after effects that continued on for a week. Where you slammed cabinet doors and I broke your very favourite mug out of pure spite. You said not a word to me for days...just gave me hard, sometimes empty-eyed looks and smoked cigarette after cigarette. We just carried along in our routine, me talking and you nodding when you had to. I took you out to our favourite Thai restaurant and you ate lemongrass chicken wordlessly. But your foot brushed against mine under the table several times and that was enough for me to know that everything was going to be alright. You'd never say you were sorry. Not verbally. Your actions spoke for you, though. My heart heard them loud and clear, and my arms welcomed you back into them whenever you wished. It was so easy then – back when words were not needed for your heart to hear mine whispering.

The ceiling in your apartment dripped. There were never enough pots or bowls, it seemed, to catch the water from every bad spot in the ceiling. On stormy days, we'd make our rounds emptying the vessels and changing them out...rewarding more needy, gushing drips with fresh bowls and putting towels on the floor to catch the water from deprived spots. On days when the weather was extremely inclement, it was almost like a game to keep the apartment from turning into a lake. We'd race around, switching out pots...sometimes our foot landing in a particularly large puddle. Either or I would slip...go skidding across the floor in a completely ungraceful acrobatic display, often resulting in a collision between our body and the hard wood flooring. Then we'd both stop...pause for a second in shock. Then laugh our asses off as though we'd never seen anything more amusing, until we'd realize that the apartment was slowly flooding again and return to our bowl changing duties.

At night, in my bed holding you and whispering "I love you's" into the dark. Feeling that everything was right in the world for those few hours of pillowy goodness. Those nights passed by in blurs of reds and blues reflected on our faces from the glow and flicker of neon signs outside my window. You felt soft and supple beneath my palm, your skin welcoming my touch wholeheartedly. I climbed atop you to look in your eyes and stroke your face and hair. Then leaned over to whisper some sweet and dreaming everything into your ear, but burped loudly instead. And you'd laughed...open mouthed and loudly, not caring what you looked and sounded like, or how potentially unladylike it was. You laughed and held me more tightly. Yes, the nights began the moment you'd slide into bed beside me and warmed me from the inside out. And they ended with quickly emptied mugs, coffee kisses, and hurried goodbyes as you ran out the door, late for class.

Today is your birthday. I've been standing here in my three piece suit, tie on and everything wondering where I went wrong. It is approximately two hours before and Associated Press Banquet....at which I'll be honored for my outstanding efforts in the journalistic field. (I think you would have been proud of me.) It's raining outside, and it's funny how rain reminds me of nothing but you. Those rainy afternoons you'd wear my old shirts and look out the window upon a gray and dismal New York. How you'd call the city wretched and sigh. You said you couldn't think as clearly as you wanted to in a place where you woke up to car alarms and traffic instead of birds. Back then, you were dreaming of green and space....of flowers and fields, I know that now. The banquet, the plaque, the esteem and all of it mean nothing to me because I'm alone in this high rise. I'm alone, but my mind is pregnant: full of my gray-blue memories of you. As I stand here, I wonder – if we both stood across from each other in a crowded room, would you recognize me?

All of it...all of us now only exists in blurred photographic images and movie scenes in my mind. In all of them, you're walking away from me. Disappearing into the shadows. I wake up in the middle of the night from dreams, nightmares really, where the dark engulfs you. I run into it blindly and call out your name, but nothing answers me. It's always the same. They all start with some brilliantly insignificant memory of you and me. A memory such as....

You eating an apple and shadowing behind me as I intensely banged out a tune on that old upright piano.

Lost in my own disconnected world, I bobbed my head in rhythmic to the rising and falling notes, fingers racing over the keys. You slowly paced behind me with a sly smile on your face, taking crunching bites out of the apple and thinking. Runningyour finger along the line of my shoulders. But I didn't notice. I was too absorbed, too far gone. You left for a moment, disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a new apple and that same odd smirk. I still remained unaware that you were even in the room. And was still unaware until you slyly brushed by and with a wave of your hand, transformed my sheet music into a messy pile of scattered papers on the floor.

Jolted from my sub-reality, I snapped to attention and yelled at you. Something like, "What the hell did you do that for?" But in response to my frustration, you only smiled gracefully. I felt the anger drip out of my pores and release me from its grasp. I sighed and turned back toward the piano, instinctively playing you "My Funny Valentine." You sit on the bench beside me and kiss my cheek. Listening as you took more bites from the apple's red flesh. You always had a way of getting exactly what you wanted from me.

We never talk, you said. Whispered into my ear in the all too early morning hours when you thought I was asleep. "I talk about everything. I tell you every bit of my day...everything I think...everything I feel...but you don't tell me anything anymore," you told me. "You used to tell me everything that popped into your mind. Jack, what happened to us? You have to talk to me. I don't want to become a couple that just goes through the routine. One of those unhappy couples that you see in restaurants that eat at the same table, but don't say a word to each other the entire time." You rested your head on my shoulder, sighing. Your curls tickled my skin while I still pretended to be asleep. Though, I heard every word. Unable to continue my charade for any longer, I mumbled something incoherent as though I was just waking up. You told me good morning. I asked you, "What's so good about it?" You just raised your cheek from my shoulder and returned to your place in the bed beside me. When I rolled over to lazily throw an arm around your warm body, I found nothing but an empty indented pillow. The still warm place in the sheets where your body was moment before.

But you were right. I needed to talk to you. To share things with you. It's called intimacy, isn't it? We had it once, though in those last few remaining days, I'm not sure that I shared one single thing with you, much less an intimate bond. All those stupid details that we remember. But we can never remember anything important. I knew your middle name. Your social security number. Your favourite pair of pajamas and how you liked your eggs. It was comfortable to know those things, to commit them to memory. It made you easy to love. Not like you weren't easy to love in the first place.

You talking in your sleep. Leftover Chinese takeout in the fridge. Clocks set a half hour early so you wouldn't be late. How you caught a pepper on fire in the microwave and then watched it glow and smoke in awe seconds before you decided to turn the microwave off. Muffy Meow, the stuffed cat with a first and last name. Notes that said, "Charley's Restaurant, 6:30. Don't be late. Love you." Late night movies on cable. The way that you preferred to sip from straws instead of bothering to lift your glass to your mouth. Ice skating in Central Park. That stupid gray sweatshirt. Catching snowflakes on your tongue. How you'd never put the cap back on the toothpaste. Worrying about how the bills would get paid in January. Or February. Unfinished books marked with playing cards. Your hair in the sink. Elephants at the zoo. Confetti. Cowboy hats. Writing on frosted windows. Frosted Flakes. Silly photographs. These things make up you in my mind. But they don't mean a damn thing.

I remember the last time I saw you.

You stood at the kitchen counter, silently cutting up an apple. I watched you from my chair, reading a book I didn't care an inch about. It just gave me a reason to not speak to you, apathetic and spiteful as that may sound. I watched you cut the apple over my book and resentment seethed within me. I could not sit still and let it boil over. No, I was too good for that. To critical...too calculating. So, I maliciously and unthinking, spat off something rotten, undeserved, and completely worthless. Something so completely insignificant that I cannot remember exactly how it went. But I recall your reaction to it in perfect detail. You stopped cutting. Looked at the ceiling above you to gather your thoughts...then looked at me. You said simply, "Then why do you keep me around?" I didn't answer right off, just stared back at you critically with a disgusted look plastered across my face. You nodded as if to say, "But of course. I see now."

Touche, my love.

. I cannot forget the way your green gold eyes swam in a pool of sadness, hatred, and regret. I watched your hands shake over the thought of forcing me to walk away for the rest of your life. Then you muttered a short goodbye and left, grabbing your coat on the way out. Almost as quickly as it took me to find a smart comeback, you were gone. Out the door and not looking back You forgot your scarf. That blue one with the mint green stripes. Two days later, I picked up the phone and called at 9:04. When you didn't answer, on your machine I slurred a plea for you to come home to me, then hung up, shrugged, and went to sleep. You were always good at holding grudges. But then, I knew it was too late, and I should have given you a reason to stay.

In the end even love doesn't save anything. It doesn't mean anything.

For a brief moment, I imagined that I saw you the other day. On the train. I thought I saw you and suddenly I could feel your arms around my waist and your scent filled my nostrils. I almost walked toward her and touched her to find out for myself. Then the faux you turned around and looked at me with eyes that were brown instead of gold green and she became only a girl with no name who rides the subway with bags and keys and soup weighing her down. So, I instead pulled my coat more tightly around and for the rest of the train ride, did not look at her again. Yet as I got off and for the rest of the day, your taste lingered my mouth, regardless. My afternoon and evening passed by in jarring blur of unsettlement and regret.

I still have all of your records. Strange how you never came to retrieve them. I suppose you'd never found the time to. Perhaps they were always more of novelty items to you than something you truly cherished. The platter that you left in the record player has never been removed. It remains there, just as you left it, its position unaltered....except for every now and then. From time to time, I turn it on to hear that same, heartbreaking song being sung to me. The words never change: "Change your heart, look around you...." It's strange how suited to my life those few lyrics have become. Strange how one line resounds in my head even when it's not playing. "Everybody's gotta learn sometime."

I play it the most when I want to remember you – when I write these letters to you even though I know you'll probably never get them. For this reason, I never bother to put a return address. I simply send them to your name, to an address in a small town in Ireland. Sligo. That place that you'd once visited shortly and often use to fantasize about residing in. It's where I like to imagine that you'd be. I don't know where you are, but thinking that you're there....thinking that I know where you are gives me a purpose and a place to send these to. It's small bit of comfort that I cling to.

Above all, I miss you and pray to God every day that I could just have one more two minute chance to make right for a lot of wrong. To undo the blindfold of selfishness tied around my eyes and just look once more unaltered at your sweet face. Isn't it rich though? How I know I'll never be granted this chance, but it never stops me from asking. You should know now, even if you've never known before that I love you, and think of you without ceasing

Yours always,

Jack

Jack folded the letter and kissed it. He stuffed it into an envelope, addressed it and completed it with a stamp. Tucking it under his arm, he noted the time, grabbed his coat, and then made his way out the door. He dropped the letter in the mailbox outside his front door and continued on his way. Jack made a detour to a little flower shop, in which he purchased on single, flawless white rose. The sky showed rain as he looked up into it after exiting the shop. Yet, he merely shrugged, flipped up his collar to guard his neck from the blistering chill and clung tightly to the rose as he braved the threatening sky.

Twenty minutes later, he stood at an iron fence in the less populated part of the city. Jack fingered the rails of the old iron gateway. Rusted, some of the reddish metal passed onto his skin. He rubbed his fingers together, smearing the red and watching it lightly coat his skin. With a heavy, resigned sigh, he pulled the gate's lever and made his way inside. Jack passed ten rows and turned left. Continuing, he made his way through another six rows and veered sharply right. Jack walked three full steps before quickly stopping in his tracks. He had known exactly where it was, but sometimes, the speed with which he arrived at his destination surprised him. He always expected to take an eternity to end up at that inevitable place. Deeply exhaling, Jack dropped to one knee and fingered the grass below him. He took the rose from his coat pocket and placed it upon the ground. His voice shaky, Jack managed a weak, "Oh, Jess" before the tears overtook his eyes and voice. She'd been gone for three years, yet every time he came to that place to look one more time upon her name carved in stone, it felt as though she'd been taken from him the day before. As though she'd gone only yesterday. And Jack, he never expected that the sensation would ever change or reduce itself in magnitude.