Salt

I knew he was like me that first weekend when he told me he also hated napping. He told me it was a waste of time to nap unless you really couldn’t keep your eyes open. I agreed.

We both got canker sores. I got mine in the crevice between my cheeks and gums—always on the bottom left. A small sliver of a cut that was raw to the touch. With a flashlight, you could see the pale pink oval shape. It was a good spot to get them because I could discretely press my tongue against it. It felt better to press with your finger, but it was the kind of relief you knew was worse for it. That pressure was good. So good, that sometimes in pristine oral health, I found myself missing the sensation.

His came most commonly on the lip. I had suspicions that he got them too when he first mentioned his “mouth hurt”. He never specified, but I figured. Once we even had one at the same time. I smiled when I read the text—the thought had already occurred to me: I bet he has one too. I let myself touch a finger to it then, a brief numbing. It was intimate.

That weekend I texted him: You should touch salt against it babe. It made mine go away overnight. He told me he tried and that it hurt like hell. There was pain all over, much worse than it had felt before. It stung all across his lip, not just where it was exposed. I told him to keep drinking water. It was worth the pain, I promised.

The next morning he was fully healed. I imagine he’s thought about how it will be to kiss with one. Would it hurt? Or would the pressure of my lips give the same relief a finger does?

I felt those moments of intimacy much before that too.

In the first few weeks of us talking I had recommended he read one of my favorite novels. He read in his favorite spot at his university’s library, the rocking chair room in the far back corner. I imagined him on a dark wooden one, rocking slowly and sighing to himself when someone sat near him. I know now that he must have read it on his IPad, because he didn’t buy a novel unless he rated it above four stars. 

We texted thoroughly about where he was in the story. Each question a pull at the blinds. What do you think about Bunny’s death? Do you find yourself justifying the murder? What do you think the main message is? Can we have a bacchanal?

A bacchanal was an ancient Roman festival—A party in the woods involving extreme revelry, intoxication, and a search for something past human consciousness. Or, as he defined it—sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

---

It was late evening, and we sat on a train from Brooklyn to Queens. Both of us slightly drunk from dinner, me probably more. Two sets of seats faced each other like a railroad carriage. My legs are out straight. They stretched long enough for my feet to rest on the seat facing me. I crossed them left over right. He’s seated diagonally from me with a hand on my bare ankle.

“What’s the order of events,” I ask.

“Wine and weed first, then we go to the woods and I do coke off you.”

“Ok good—yeah, that was my preference.”

The train doors open for seven seconds—no one enters. The lights flicker weakly. Both our hair is still damp from the drizzle outside. My cheeks flush from the wine, bringing a deep warmth. The same warmth pulses where his hand meets my ankle.

“Plus, after, I’ll write a book about our bacchanal and sell it as fiction,” I continue.

“And what would you change my name to?”

“Weston,” I say.

 He laughs and tilts his head sarcastically, “So clever.”

“But I’m going to make you crazy in the book.”

A cold pinching sensation against my Achilles tendon. I watch his fingers absently toy with the heart chain on my anklet. With this, the chain pulls up and the clasp digs sharp into my heel. Despite it, I smile and he asks, “What kind of crazy?”

“I think you’ll stalk me in the woods.” I look down. “But then I fall in love and we have the bacchanal.”

He smiles big then, almost reluctantly. The silver charm drops gently against my ankle. Warmth again when his fingers settle against my skin. “Can that just be the original?”

It was April, and soon we would be in different states. Separated for months, maybe even longer. That distance was unconventionally early, and we didn’t discuss it much—just knew it’d be fine. We’d be apart far longer than we’d been together. Intense, I think, how it will feel to fall in love from afar.

---

E:         I can barely breathe already                               

I run past scarce trees, the last of their orange leaves holding on to the tips of the branches. The concrete is masked in crispy brown and yellow. It’s the only time of year I can hear the pound and crunch of my foot through my headphones. Easton said the trees were already bare near him. No more pictures to send me on these runs. We made efforts to run at the same time, as if we were together.

Thirty minutes of loud leaves and a slight swell in my right shin. At some point my mind had established itself as a Venn diagram. One side was Easton; this side was pure and warm. It was vigorous and capable of withstanding the harshness of reality. The other side was empty; it was laying in bed at night, or when the wind gave me chills and the sudden awareness that I was alone. It was harder to leave this side because, what if? What if one day I’d be here forever? But, the overlap was kind to me, I was there the most—happy but aware. 

On these runs I always started in the middle. My shin was aching badly, this was true injury. The discomfort that ran up my body to my lungs was separate. The prolonged burn of exhaustion that ironically decreased the longer you went. The moment it feels unbearable is also when the pain starts to shift. “The peace that is past the pain.” If you pushed to that certain intensity, there was no space to be elsewhere—out of the mind and into the body. The feeling is similar to a high, like a euphoric hushed clarity. But, it was different like this because he was enduring it too. That acute clarity was shared between us both. These runs always pushed me to the good circle, the Easton side.

I come to a stop, bending over my hands meet my knees. A drop of sweat slips from the bridge of my nose. Standing back up, the salted sweat now against my lips. Heat flushes across my face and my breath is quick and short. This feeling is like a pleasant panic—I have subjected myself to vexed patience and now I’m rewarded with recovery.

E:        Hi, I love you                                                                        

E:     I'm so lucky to do this with you                                             

To E:    I was just thinking about that, I love you                         

To E: I did 3 miles, what about you?             

______

In front of me is a large metal cross. The bench I’m seated on is one of six that forms a circle around the sculpture. My university had pieces like this scattered thoroughly around campus. The trees around me are almost bare. I’m reminded of how they looked last Spring. They were engulfed in pink peonies that he said made him sad: the wind is too quick to make the flowers fall. I hadn’t thought of that, I just liked how they left behind puddles of thin pink leaves. The wind in April was gentle, but now it carries fast harsh slaps. I see spring wind as an entirely separate entity from the wind of winter.

I liked to sit in this spot because the cross comforted me. I’m not religious, but the idea of such a large population sharing a devout fate was a solace. I only began to grasp that devotion when I met Easton. Yes, I could put blind faith in something that can’t be promised. I can’t see you but I believe you. I would've been a great catholic. 

My back aches slightly from the rigid structure of the bench. I shift and straighten up crossing my leg over the other. A gust of wind passes, and my arms cover in goosebumps. I remember clearly now a moment here from that April. A nun and a man walk up to the blooming pink tree. She was smiling wide, like a child. She wore a long navy dress with a thin white veil covering her head. She and the man stand together, side by side, silently observing the tree closely. Still smiling, the nun turns her back to the tree. The man pulls his phone from his pocket and brings it up to his eye for a photo. It was then that we first talked about our religious beliefs.

Other people may sit here to feel God, and maybe I did too, subconsciously. However, the only thing I know matter of fact was that I feel Easton. I feel him when my anklet catches against my shoe and pierces the skin. In my stomach when I worry, and spreading across my heart when I sleep. I felt him overwhelmingly the time he told me, “I feel everything related to you in my whole body”. Although he was hurting when he said it, I took it as a positive confirmation of our shared experience. I love you didn’t come for a couple of months after, but it was then I knew he did.

I hope I can be with him soon—to be close physically. I don’t let myself think about it extensively; because I could linger there too, in hope and reverie. It was that same relief as a finger to the sore. And I feel guilt for letting myself be sad—like I am supposed to be more composed. Don’t bring it up so often. Be more mindful because maybe sharing your sadness is selfish. It feels sinful to wallow in that distress when I also feel so lucky. Lucky to miss someone so deeply, lucky to feel and understand it. And yet, in my mind existing beside the guilt, is my patience. Patient like a nun. To others, insane like a nun: How long has it been? When do you think you'll see him? You’re practicing a lot of restraint . . . I know it's hard. More than just difficult—true discipline to not let it depress me completely.

But even in this place, I knew he was there too.

“Pleasure alone is mere temporary indulgence, a subtle distraction, an anesthetization while on the path to something higher, deeper, lower. Eternity lies far, far beyond pleasure. And beyond pain.”