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In New York, there is no bloodletting in the transition between day and night. The sun sets over the West, dragging the light into the ocean, boiling the colors of blood and flushed skin into a crayon soup. It was that time, in the weird light that never makes coming to work good. And here I was, alone in the bar with nothing to do. He came in with that look of relief that the bar was empty. Sitting next to the well, he sat down with a purpose that was sewn into the lips, needing a seamstress to wet the skin and pull out the surgical threads. A beer and a stiff shot, firing rounds like russian roulette. He tells me everything I need to fix utnil he says, "You like to take care of people." It's like speaking into a mirror. Some bathroom mirror where my face is some female version of their own. I see his lover in my eyes, a body double because she is not here. He tells me he can't masterbate without thinking about her. They always want to talk about love or the lack, happy that you are a stranger. As a bartender, you are the most intimate stranger. I wanted to ask his number, make sure he got home okay. I know him in the ways others won't. I know about his childhood molestation, his failed art, the 'one day that lasted six years without weather to break things apart in California', and that none of it matters if he cannot hold this woman again, this unconventionally beautiful woman who loves him even though she can see who he is. "Have you ever..." I don't know if he got home alright, though I wish I did. The needling questions and intoxicated confessions remind me of things I don't get drunk enough with bartenders to voice, all the rumbled reasons I kiss and run with men who don't understand that the loneliness is a more pregnant promise than the lonely power of a fleeting ego trip. I can come by myself. Although, I admit lately that I can't. I can't because I cannot reach that far inside myself, to that lonely spot I confused for a g-spot once. I want to make dinner for someone and watch them sleep and feel pretty in those ways that do not need to make sense.
8:52 AM
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