I saw you when were both in that club that smelt like electric sex and had the glow of neon from peoples clothing choices that you and I were smirking at when we locked eyes.
I tried to make my way through the dank smoke that filtered itself into my bloodstream just as the nicotine from many late-night Pall Malls would.
I was jostled around and felt bass resonate in my chest. The rhythm beat beat beat to the tempo I had in my mind but that was now solely on the offbeat.
I reached the spot where you stood but no longer were and floated away, like many a shot used by an artsy film student that thinks himself better than the rest. Time and space, neither existing, slipped through my fingers, causing me to bump the man next to me and spill beer down his front.
At home I nursed my black eye, the one on my face and the one on my heart, now aching with the thought of lost love. It would have been worse had I actually talked to you and realized you were everything I want and still lost you. Because everything fades and we all die alone.
Now I’m 55 and married with kids and I still wonder what my life would be like had I been quicker on my feet. My wife and I live in a numbing kind of bliss. The kind you get from sitting on a park bench, not from sky diving, which is the thrill you gave me in my stomach when I saw you.
And now, at 70, as I realize I’m dying from those damn cancer sticks I inhaled trying to get over you I realize that maybe love means settling. Especially now, in modern America, the land of quickie weddings, fast food restaurants, and subpar schools. And that is the thought that lingers on my brain as I escape into the nothingness that follows.