untitled

[written 7.16.08]

para carlito

I remember when I first saw you

I saw only your dark eyes

With all of my soul,

And I was falling.

I fell in love at first sight,

And as you spoke about home

And Havana

And a family more broken than the old monitor you won’t let go of,

It almost seemed rational.

I remember when you first left me

Only a few hours later,

As I dropped you at your house

And watched you shut

The door.

And the hole in my heart,

And the fear in my gut,

That I wouldn’t find you again since I’d never seen you before

And there were only a few months left.

I remember when I first called you

After finding your number

And holding it for days

Knowing that I was so close to finding but always

Missing you.

And I asked you in

And I brought you to the Family

The friends whom I had cooked and cleaned after for months and years already,

And you insisted on doing dishes.

I remember the first time we talked in your driveway

Until longer than I should have stayed out

As I argued with you about prom

And my self-image

And being an intelligent girl,

And home.

And how I sat next to you in my car for hours

Only a few feet from you, and felt my heart helplessly trying not to hope that you might just once

See me as something more.

I remember when I called all my friends

After I had first met you,

And told them, only half-jokingly,

That I had met the love of my life,

And they had to see his eyes.

And I remember the constant

Fighting

Within,

As my experience was trying so hard to dig its heels in and hold on to the rope burning in hand,

And drag my heart back up,

But my heart had already slipped off the cliff.

I remember driving late at night,

Listening through the stereo to your ipod,

As you whispered into my ear

In the accent that I alone had no trouble understanding,

Translating the Spanish love songs

You played

That I knew you would never mean

For me.

I remember walking until I had blisters

On Bayshore

At midnight,

Discussing the merits of recording American Beauty,

Capturing it or experiencing it

To the most.

And I remember loving your mother

And your brother

And hating that you hated the American life

And giving so much of myself into you, hoping that you might finally take the leap to be happy-

Because then,

You might love me.

And I remember as I left you there

With the rest of my memories

of unrequited love,

And found myself so free,

I hated you

For letting me love you

And never letting my love change your life.

But the hate died into apathy, and it took weeks then months for us to call each other back,

And it was all over.

But we were never meant to be- we both had our prior loves.

I loved my God and joy and love

and beauty,

And though you told me I was beautiful,

And I wanted so much to believe,

I could never compete with your bitter melancholy,

Because you had left your heart

In Cuba.