UNTIL THE DEEP WATER STILLS

DISTANCE 

 

I saw that troubled expression on Jayce’s face again. Why do I feel drawn to him at moments like that? It’s like I’m seeing him from a distance – just his silhouette – and suddenly I have this burning need to physically connect with him even if he’s not aware of it. Is this some other kind of love or just the echoes of what I used to feel?

 

 

The problem is I can’t imagine my life without him. He’s so much a part of the shape of my life. The little things that you don’t think amount to anything. Waking up next to him. Knowing exactly what he’s going to do and when and how. There’s something comfortable and safe about all that that I don’t want to surrender.

 

It’s the memories that love clings to, I think. You can’t erase memories no matter how hard you try. They carry everything you felt at that moment with them and pull you back to something that’s not there anymore. A once-in-a-lifetime sunset that you can’t let go of even though the moment it graced is lost.

 

 

Nicholas is the other side of the coin. He’s a risk because I never know quite where my cues are going to send him to. He crosses a boundary and awakens something in me that I’ve allowed to lie fallow. Truth be told he’s becoming more than just a subject.

 

I ought to feel guilty about the time I spend with him but I don’t always. More and more I feel he’s something I have a right to although I go to great pains to keep him a secret. Is that veiled guilt or jealousy?

 

Now I thought shift back to Jayce and wonder if he feels the loss of me. Somehow it’s not the same for him. It’s about presence for him. As long as I’m there where he can see me – even if he doesn’t connect with me – that’s enough for him. It’s as if I need colour but black and white is enough for him.

 

 

 

Have we got to that point where it’s really all about the routine? Going through the motions and pretending that that is enough. It seems like inertia is all that’s keeping us together now. That and the force of Jayce’s will.

 

Can you still call it love when there’s a distance between how it simmers in him and how it pulses in me? It seems to me that it’s like hoping for rain in the desert. There’s just no point to love when it doesn’t echo back to you.