What is your name?

A memory of the two of us kissing by the bar stools, our fingers touching, our knees half-bent, lingers in my mind. That Wednesday night, you in gray, myself in purple, liquor on our breaths, we chatted about the New York Stock Exchange. You touched my leg but I didn't move away, I didn't flinch -I normally do because I dislike being touched -and pulled me closer, my heart against your scruff, my words against your ears, and said Can I kiss you, please?

I said, Yes, you may, you may kiss me hard.

And we did. A geometric reciprocity in which our lips turned angles, our tongues arched within the hollow of our mouths, and my body shuddered with a rush of excitement. My fingers traced the shape of your ears, your moles, the bumps from your bicycle crash on Bliss Street-Rivington Avenue, and slumped over your bony shoulders. You took my hands, cupped them against your left palm and stared into my eyes, dilated from gin, as the disco lights changed colors: red and green, to harvest yellow, to aquamarine.

I am not rich, you said, but I can keep you happy.

And I cried. So much, that it stained my shirt, I noticed the next morning. The kind of tears that falls when liquor gives release to a depressed brain; a brain seethed in ambiguity and self constructed insecurities. A brain that wants to speak but has no audience sans judgment. And it felt good. Frankie Valli played on the speakers above our heads. The couple to our right fought about a ball game. You held me closer and uttered words that I cannot even remember, but all I craved was a moment of silence. A quiet, a pause. The traffic lights turned red. Bar-goers stepped out for a whiff of smoke. I placed my ears along the ridge of your chest, your sky blue shirt slightly unbuttoned, and closed my eyes. It felt amazing. Wonderful, the comfort you can feel within the depths of a stranger.

 

Sometimes I try to erase this memory, flick away this image the way I would a sea shell into sand dissipating from its shoreline, but the textures and smells, the granularity of emotions stays cocooned within the mirage of my happiness, that condenses and vaporizes along life. And then I pause, appreciating circumstance, and move on with the circus.