26 Hours After Turning 26

When Did Good Become Good Enough?

Sometime after our second date, while I sat there stoically watching him peel off the paper label from his yet to be opened Diet Peach Snapple, I had a flash of my soon to be realized future. Me, bent over the couch, the kitchen table, crawling on my hands and knees in the bedroom, sweating, panting, gasping for air as my hands grope and glide into some tiny crevice reaching for tiny shards of dejected paper he unwittingly pressed into tiny triangles from whatever soft drink he happened to be downing at that moment.

I tackled the check before his orgy of origami could turn it into an overpriced for undercooked swan. That was the last time I saw him, or paid $24 for an omelet.

When I was sixteen, I figured dating would be different. I'd meet a guy (yes, I knew and accepted it way back then), he'd approach me on a park bench, New York Times crossword puzzle in hand (yes, I was a nerd way back then too), tell me he knows this is awkward, he's never done this before -- his piercing blue eyes and two-day old stubble make me doubt that highly -- but would I happen to know a seven letter word for what's missing in both our lives? I'd smile, uncomfortably at first until I remembered in my fantasy I didn't have to wear braces, and then, with as much confidence as a scrawny sixteen year old boy can muster, I'd turn to him and say, "Jared" -- all my teenage fantasies involved a dark-haired scruffy-faced blue-eyed Jared -- "I think what you're looking for is Passion."

Passion. Lust. Craving. Urges. No. Passion. Love. Desire. Lust. Craving. Urges. Stop. What is passion? Why does it lead me on a lyrical journey to the base need to be naked and not alone? And why do I still sit on park benches hoping to be approached by shadows from what could have been my life if only I had been born on TV. I checked the real estate section a lot in high school. No one ever moved off the Creek.

And so ten years later, I'm walking down the street alone, cell phone in hand, scrolling through a list of names I can hardly remember. All my single friends are no longer single. All my boyfriends are no longer mine and the hook ups, the booty calls, the one night stands marked with an asterisk after their names...on the other line and will call me back.

This is what my mother meant when she said I have chosen a very lonely life. Her voice rumbles and tumbles in my head, the distorted realization setting in that there was actual truth behind her words. I may not have chosen to be gay, but I certainly have chosen a path of loneliness. What my mother couldn't have known then was that the linear genealogy of passion itself, when broken down to its smallest parts -- the lust, the craving, the urge to release and release and release again -- for gay men, or perhaps all men, starts with the simplest of needs, the easiest to meet, the hardest to deny and quite possibly an insatiable hunger for more.

But I'm starving for just that. More. MORE than the simplest of needs, MORE than the easy meet, MORE than what I've grown accustomed to, for better or worse, because of the mechanics of this user-friendly internet, the uncensored websites with bulletin boards and blogs and unlimited chat spaces with their unabashed webcams.

I am sorry that I shut out the good guys for the good looking ones. I just couldn't bring myself to settle for anything short of perfection. I mean, is it too much to ask that I meet a guy who doesn't chew his fingernails at dinner, calls his mother every night before bed or likes me too much too fast? Is it wrong that I judge how well he tips the waiter, how fast he drives his car, how often I catch him looking at me when I sleep? Can I not weigh in his ability to kiss or his willingness to do it in public? Am I really being a bitch for not wanting to spend the next forty years of my life stepping on sticky ringlets of paper he peeled from off the sides of a juice box? Just drink the damn Snapple and throw it out as it was given to you!

No, I'm not able to settle for that. I can walk a few more blocks by myself, scroll through a few more names, visit a few more websites, post a few more blogs, sit and wait on a few more park benches to be approached by the type of man who knows the answer to the question always on my mind: Is there someone really great out there for me, or has good truly become good enough?

About You

Your scent still lingers about the room,
dancing in and out of the tousled sheets and
cologne sprayed pillow cases,
which only hours earlier caressed both our faces.
Your side of my bed is now empty,
though the imprint of where you last lied,
where your hand clung to my chest,
where your breath clung to my neck
remains.
And it pains me,
to think that last night, like the one before and
the one before that,
were just moments between friends.
Just moments.
Just friends.

I should make my bed,
but instead,
I’ll just lie here,
in the underwear I let you borrow and never washed,
in the wake of something new,
something borrowed,
from you.
But this isn’t about you.

Your half smoked cigarette, now cold and peeling,
stands on the ledge of my window, kneeling,
stealing gasps of oxygen from the breeze which barely
touches its side,
and then with one slight gust of chilling pollution,
the solution, suicide.

So the Malboro Man jumps, four stories
to his brothers, the others,
collected in a mass grave below my window sill,
half smoked, charcoal colored butts --
Dumb fucks.
See the secret is to stay lit,
to keep breathing,
to inhale the oxygen,
to fill the lungs,
‘cause when you burn out,
no one wants you anymore.

And tonight you’re out with him,
the one you want,
the one that excites you,
and stimulates you.
The one that just won’t burn out,
no matter how hard I wish it.
And he knows I want you,
‘cause I do,
but this, my friend, isn’t about you.

I didn’t write this poem to apologize,
or to bring saltless tears to your eyes,
I didn’t do it to make you feel guilty,
or to win you back,
or to change your mind,
or to make you feel something more than you already do.
This poem isn’t about you,
and it’s not about the way your morning breath makes me horny,
or how the heat you give off melts my heart.
I won’t mention how your lipless smile knocks my knees,
or how I think you are so beautiful --
words that will never reach your ear,
out of fear,
they’d never reach mine.

See, he’ll have your body,
you’ll have my heart,
and I’ll have your half smoked cigarette,
clasped between my lips,
sucking desperately for one last hit,
or perhaps,
a taste of your breath.
And when you’re done with him,
when you come home at 3:11 in the morning,
all tired and fucked up,
all fucked out,
you’ll crawl into your side of my bed,
let the cologne sprayed pillow caress your head,
and the heat of your body warm my feet,
and the smell of your instincts stain my sheets,
and you’ll roll over and clutch my chest,
and I’ll pretend to be asleep so you don’t have to explain,
so you won’t have to mention his name.

And I know I shouldn’t let you in,
but the dirty little whore inside is determined to win,
win you over and back, for his own selfish gain,
anything at all to lessen this pain.
But I’d die before I ever told you,
that I think I’m right for you,
that I am the one for you.
That I like you.
That I want you.
That, in fact, this is about you,
about you and your smell,
and your warmth and your smile
and your fucking cigarettes,
which carelessly strew themselves outside my window,
as you carelessly stand below without a clue,
as to what it means when I say this isn’t about you.