I murdered you in at least three different ways already, just seeing you stand there with that stupid smirk on your face. I’m too awkward, hurt really to be the bigger person, to look at you, to pretend everything is forgiven with a simple hello. So instead, I pretend I don’t see you in all your afro glory and your dumb smile that reminds me of your childhood photos. I turn to leave but you grab my arms and slowly shut your lips on mine. Against my better judgment, I don’t fight it, I mean I could never fight you for long and my friends hated you for that. How did it feel after all this? Did I taste like gin just as you’d liked? I’m curious, do I intoxicate you the same? You, on the other hand, taste different, like someone else, like several people in fact and just the thought of that was enough to make me pull away.
I know you expected what came next, the sound of my palms against your face, and I hope my rings dug deep. You cupped your cheeks and smiled at me “Ah well, foreplay is slightly different from what I remember but then again, you were never one for subtlety.”
“It’s been 7 months, bastard”
“Oh? Well, I missed your crase and your energy… I drove past your street a couple months back and I thought of- ”
“Stop please, just stop, we’ve done this enough times, we know how it’ll end” I always got the short end of the stick. I always believed too much and hoped a little bit more that every new beginning would be different because this time we understood each other better. We’d done the work and we’d conquered our demons. Yet everytime, each heartbreak topped the last. “I don’t want any more of the snake oil you have to sell, I beg.”
You looked a little sad, almost as if you hadn’t been aware of how much I felt for you and how much I’d paid for it and if I didn’t know better maybe I would’ve believed you.
“Alright, omolewa mi, no more snake oil, no games. Just us, two people with a mutual connection?”
What the fuck was that? What did that even mean? I had so many words for you but they seemed to well up in my eyes, ready to fall but for the next words you said, as true to your asshole nature as could be.
“Hey, we are at a party, it’s not time to think of what might have been. If we are meant to be, we will always find our way back to each other, the universe always has a way of working these things out but for now, why don’t you drop it low and dutty whine it for me, I’ll make it rain.”
You’re insane but it wasn’t anything new. No need for pretenses. You were my karma. You’d had my mumu button for the last three years; my boundaries always found new land when it came to you. No two ways about it.
But in between the dirty dancing and this pathetic mess, I realized I liked us better this way. No exaggerated intimacies to cut through our moments of uncomfortable stillness. No raised voices in response to acts of provocation nor overly doting sentiments of the time we’d once shared. Just primal senses; raw and longing. It was as close to love as we’d ever get in this lifetime and in this wretched city.
And it was when you whispered in my ear, “Did you miss me ?” I responded,
“Is water wet ?”
