he said he was sorry and i think he was. i think that what happens between us is something i can tell you about and i can try to explain but i don’t know if it’s something you’ll understand. you’ve just never been here, you’ve never been in my shoes.

he’s here for me when i need him: he not only has my back but he warms it, it’s focused and intense. he’s here enough that i feel like i can trust him, rely on him. he brings light into my life and without the person he is when he’s wonderful– i don’t know much, but i know that i have never been as happy as i have been then. sitting outside, a cold beer and the sun on my face and Squire Tuck frolicking and this is what i want and it’s who i want to be. this year was probably even better than most, despite the stormy unpleasantness in august.

and it was good for so long. september and october were like long apologies, like a daily dose of flowers and warmth to compensate for august. everything could be done: plant a late garden and it bursts forth. i walked home at twilight and felt safe, like i didn’t need layers and layers of subterfuge, like i could be–not naked, i never feel that safe, but like i could show myself and it would be okay. like i could flirt a little, something low-necked, a bit of ankle showing. you know.

the window replacement? that was hard times. what if he hadn’t been here for me during that? what would i have done. and my parents? only a week, but the whole time, everything was perfect, i danced alongside my mother kicking leaves and saying "see how he’s good? see how he’s good to me? see why i stay? all this beauty!"

but then today i woke up and it was as if all that happiness never happened. he says, "i held back as long as i could but you knew my nature when you came to me." and i did, but still, it was like ice that wanted to rip through me, take out my heart, make me question everything. it was a cold slap in the face; it was siberia. and there will be no relief.

it will go on like this for months. there’s no point in fighting it. i know how to handle what’s gone and what’s past help. i will hunker down and take it because i know in the end it makes me stronger. or actually i don’t know that but it’s what i say and it’s how i get through.

i know some people who think i should leave. who think that four months of bliss doesn’t make up for six months of crying every day, tears frozen to my eyelashes and knowing that every day etches more wrinkles into my face than a month of cigarettes. the fear of being knocked down, sliding, the constant ringing in my ears and the feeling that maybe i chose wrong. i don’t know what to say to those people. i usually say, "come in the spring. come in the summer."

first snowfall today, y’all.
please to remember that i speak the metaphor fluently, hm.

i am sorry that i’ve been doing this to you lately, this "let me tell you about our friendship" nonsense, this "let me tell you why you are important" because i know how tiresome that is. it was 20 years ago i read the sentence "when can we stop talking about this relationship and have it" and i knew it was as true as anything i’d ever read. friendships are not made by constant definiton; they are made by the perfect mobius of being there and needing someone to be there. need is too strong a word, but you know. friendships, real friendships, are shared interest and shared value and over time the shared space that is the two of you standing back to back against the world and the shared space of knowing that when you really fuck up, that friend is there to face you, tell you you fucked up and then brush your hair from your eyes so you can see your way out.

given that we know that, and that part of our friendship is that we know that, my recent apparent need to TELL you that is surely a rub. i don’t mean it how it spills from my eyes. you hand me a tissue and i take it and this is what’s important, not that i tell you "you always have tissue when i need it" but that you had it and i took it. surely that’s enough. i know that’s enough.

but i also feel wrapped in uncertainty and meanness and i am afraid that this leaks from me like my tears and when i tell you you always have tissue what i mean to say is i am sorry that lately my tears are as full of bile as they are of salt. rag water and bitters and blue ruin; i am afraid of spilling out over the sides to anyone who will listen. i am afraid of being engulfed, i am afraid of dragging you down when i grab your lifeline. i hope that by explaining how what you do means something to me, that this will somehow protect you. i mean to admire your buoyancy, not to pull you under when there’s no need.

i realize that in a way stating my high estimation of you is a way of underestimating you. back to back we face each other. i meant to thank you and leave it at that. thank you. i mean that.