My truth.

My first love. How terrifying.

In my teens I had no idea what love was. I thought infatuation was a symptom of teen angst. A symptom of friendship.

Not too long ago I sought the guidance of bacchus, the god of drunkenness and revelation and I have surely found what I was looking for, and I have found what I was hiding from.

My first party at Kristen’s. It was my birthday function. A soiree where I was drunk by five. I met him in the smokers circle, a communion of relief at that first divine exhale of the evening. I’d met him before, at Justin’s 18th. He bummed a Marlboro red, he bummed a few if memory serves me right. He was the elusive hope: gay, gorgeous, intelligent and funny. He was Matt.

I will save time, we gradually saw each other more and more. There was another party at Kristen’s where he rolled the joint, the joint that sent me spinning. He gave me these cigarettes with a bead in the butt, that is the smell of desire. Andrew’s 18th. A hazy night by the most generous of accounts. He walked with me, we talked and touched each other. Nothing sexual, just warm friendly gestures. Then there was the night.

Veronica’s 18th. We flirted all night. I dropped hints, had more cigarettes and of course stella artois. That beer will always mean something important to me because of Matt. That was the night we slept together.

We both knew what was happening. I mentioned I had nowhere to sleep, he suggested his car. I was in bed waiting for him when he arrived and closed the boot. Before I knew it his lips were against mine and our hands were holding each other in a perfect embrace. Honest, loving and sensual. His lips were everything I had been looking for, that feeling will always be the gut wrenching impossibility from which I define love from this point until eternity.

There were many nights between that night and…..well….what is left.

And now, I cannot cry, I cannot lament as a lover. Asia. That trip that was forever in my mind as the end date. That infernal, beautiful continent has made me chaste. All I want is another night. One more time. His smell, his touch. I have been waiting for him to message me, to tell me that this is a mutual feeling. That it’s not just balls and alcohol. And so I wait.

I am terrified. I am terrified that this will not have the ending I wanted. The ending I need. All I have is my words. Time has another 3 months. Three months is an impossibility. The next time I can even hope to see him is April. What is there? What can I even hope for? Three months gone!. If this is one month, and absence makes the heart grow fonder then three more months is a pain I will never be able to bear.

I feel like a child. A smitten child. I have criticised people that feel this way, to no extent I have criticised them. How can I be so dull? I have always thought it dull to wish for something that cannot be. To wish for something that is forever in the horizon, an oasis makes the optimist of the brightest fools. Perhaps that’s all he is. An oasis.

There is an even greater fear. One that I might not even be able to commit to the reality of words….that he doesn’t feel the same. And with that I will smoke as much as I like. I will drink as much as I like. I will explore the deepest realms of Sodom and Gomorrah if I ever find this abhorrent possibility to be true. I have wanted to scream. To let out the impossible sound. The sound of everything I fear and hope for all in the same suicidal, lamenting, loving, desiring note. That sound will haunt me until my breath is exhausted and meaningless.

By Bacchus let him know what I feel, get this longing to him. I’ll get around that ocean. I’ll get around time. That date when he lands back home and I know what it feels like to be in his arms once more. His smell, his touch, his voice will surpass it and I will be with him again.