Abingdon To Babylon

We shared a smoke in Abingdon and watched the sky grow gray. We watched the season change as the last gust of a dying spring blew through our bodies, and I thought that maybe I could make it, but Lord knows I’m a liar. You held my hand as we walked to dinner on 10th and Bleeker Street. You held my hand against caution, against an incomplete picture and changing brush strokes unaligned and incongruent. The sum of all my parts adds up to exactly half of what it costs to keep this love alive. The surface tells a story we’d like to believe as you send me selfies from the bathroom; I can’t imagine not having this for the rest of my days. As the spring makes way for the summer, I can tell I’m hardly holding on, covering the cracks with believable stories and managing to make enough smiles to keep it going. On the Christopher Street Station platform, you take pictures of me, and it’s like seeing myself for the first time. Who the hell am I to play games with such a steady heart? Back in your apartment after a night made of daydreams, I lay in your bed with your head on my chest I cradle a double shot of self-loathing doing my best to commit to memory as much as I can before I go drunk with the realization I can’t keep this up. I listen to you sleep and watch the sounds you make as you lay there in your purest form, like a child unaware of the calamity on the horizon. When the summer sets, I’ll be gone, and this will probably feel more akin to a dream than it does to reality. I drove myself out, and maybe I’m too afraid to change, just too set in my ways. The words almost escaped my mouth that night as I saw the glint in your eyes, and even though I never said it, it doesn’t make it any less true.

Cover Art: Springtime In Abingdon Square #2 - Ed Weidman