Love

I Had a Great Time With You Last Night…

… so he says.

What if you didn’t? Will you leave?

My heart dipped a little and I cautiously returned his smile with a slight smile, my eyes betraying the turbulence of emotions stewing inside me. I wondered indeed, what if my monsters got the better of me? What if I were not my peppy chipper self? Memories of me splayed on the bathroom floor, in a dingy motel room, in a dark place somewhere, wailing and howling in an attempt to let go of my pain, flooded my mind. It takes a herculean effort to remain poised, tethered and controlled, and unsuspected of being “un-normal.” I’ve worked hard at hiding the parts of myself that winces at every micro-expression and slip and clue that tells me he’s caught on to my act, that I’m a high-functioning imposter barely able to hold it together. That maybe at some point, I will crumble and fall to pieces and he won’t love what he sees.

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Love

A Letter to Someone I Once Loved

Subject Line: Hello, From An Old Friend

Dear K,
 
How have you been? You’ve been in my thoughts lately and I have been wondering about whether I should write you. Mainly because I’m curious about how you are and whether you are well. It must be strange to hear from me six years after we last saw each other. Strange, but oh what the hell. So, how the hell are you?

I suppose if I had to guess at my motive for writing you, it might be that it’s taken me this long to process my feelings about you, the breakup, our years together and make sense of my own thoughts and inclinations. I’ve been known to procrastinate, so I’m sorry this is coming six years late. Or maybe, it is just right on time.

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Borderline Person

E.R.

I clutched my chest, tightened, trying to hold on to it as if my heart were going to pop out. My naked bottom cold from the touch of the plastic toilet seat was tireless from bouts of diarrhea. Angry beads of sweat proliferated on my forehead, my underarms and my belly, and I clumsily wiped them off with my blue cotton plaid shirt, then struggled to take my shirt off. It got so hot in the tiny 1/2 bathroom of my San Francisco apartment. I got seriously anxious, palpitations and all, something I hadn’t felt in a few years. Thoughts raced through my head, “Should I call N, my best friend and emergency contact?” Should I go to the E.R.? Should I call 911? Maybe I’d feel better after a while?”

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Borderline Person

One Day When I Was 19

If I try to retrace the day it happened, I suppose I could say I was wearing a light grey bias cut skirt, with a darker grey layer under – it was cut in an odd geometrical shape so that you could see just a quadrangular trim. I wore a white Calvin Klein bandeau bra top, which I never knew what to make of, as it wasn’t exactly a bra, it was more like an undershirt that you still needed to wear a strapless bra under. And I certainly could never go out on the streets with just that bandeau top – imagine the stares, the umcomfortable leary stares I would get. Still, in order to emphasize this bandeau top, I had to throw something on that would allow others to know its existence. The perfect solution? A form-fitting pale green capped sleeve, scooped neck blouse that was loosely knitted so that you could see my white bandeau and my pale honey-toned mid section. To someone far away, it may look like a one-piece monotone Bauhaus painting.

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Love

The Affair

The thing about Colin is, deep down, I knew it wasn’t more than what it was. I needed him and he needed something from me that he wasn’t getting from his “real life.” Typing now from my patio in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a little bit of kismet at play here. Colin is a photographer originally from the SF Bay Area and at the time of our affair, he was an expat in Singapore with a successful and beautiful wife and kid in tow. I never really asked why he would stray from his perfect life, but I guess it didn’t matter to me at the time. I was consumed by my own need — and he checked all the boxes.

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