pilot light.

I drank whiskey until I couldn’t think, and went home alone. I woke up early, without a hangover, but it took four hours to get out of bed. I called in broken to work. I called my mother and begged to come home for a few days– forgetting, for a moment, that I am home. I live in a beautiful apartment in Brooklyn, and suddenly, being here makes my body feverish, aching, ill at ease. She came a week after I moved in; we kissed over half-assembled furniture, and made love instead of unpacking the dozen boxes stacked against the living room wall. It was January, and we went to Coney Island, drank bad beer and ate a good hot dog, photographed the strangeness of the empty boardwalk, the stand-still Wonder Wheel. There is a picture of us kissing on the beach, noses pink from the cold, smiling like we can’t believe we’re this lucky–

because we weren’t, after all. These pictures are in photo albums, hanging on walls, tucked in the edge of the closet mirror. My home is full of landmines. Every time I take a shower, I remember her up against the shower wall, head tilted back and mouth open, my mouth on her neck, my hand between her legs, my heart beating so fast I can hardly remember to breathe–

every time. Really. In the bathroom that afternoon, I didn’t know whether to cry or try to make myself come, so I tried both. I couldn’t come. I cried more.

My pilot light is out: turn the knob, and nothing happens. There’s no spark, no catch, no flame. I don’t want food or sex or sunlight. I want to sleep until this is over.

I take a nap, but it only lasts two hours. I have a drink with someone who used to be a friend. We take a long walk and talk about our neighborhood. He’s driving me home when I decide to eat. We stop; I buy a plum, a cucumber, some tomatoes. I sit on my sofa and eat slowly, dipping them into a tiny bowl of raspberry balsamic that she gave me. It is bitter and sweet. This all is.

This wasn’t a mistake. We did the right thing. I did the right thing. You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?, she asked. No, I said. No. I said it, then, because I love her. I’ve loved her since I felt her heart beat underneath my palm in the back of her truck, since she was born, since I was born, since artichokes grew, since there have been rocks and water. Someone should’ve told me that love wasn’t always enough; then again, someone probably did. I wasn’t listening.

I’m listening now: to New York City at six in the morning, to the sun rising over this skyline that I love, to the quiet, even breath of a good friend asleep in the next room, to a sad, sad song, to the empty space in the center of my body.

When we hang up, I said, I’m going to call back. Don’t answer. I left a voicemail: in case you start to forget– I love you. You’ll be ok. So will I. I love you, always.

I love her. I love her, always. She’ll be ok. And so will I. I will cry, I will go see my mother, I will let the friends I’ve made in these months drag me out for dinners I don’t want, I will sleep too much, I will drink too much and then not at all, I will not dial her number, I will wait. I will wait for a spark, a catch, and a flame. I will wait for want to come back, because it will. Grief is my bombshelter, my necessary hotel through the reconstruction, my uncomfortable but temporary address. When it is over, I will come home to myself. I will turn on the oven (spark, catch, flame), and bake bread.