A message to Her:
If your name were a tangible object, I’d imagine it to be a key he carries everywhere with him — tucked safely in his pocket, clutched tightly in his palms, held against his chest like a wish. Your name, an unconventional two-syllable word, unlocks doors to his heart and the windows to his eyes. When he speaks of you, his lips form an upturned crescent and his eyes brim with endearment and life, telling of the shared history in which the two of you are writers and lead characters at the same time. The pronouns “She” and “Her” become sacred labels of your identity and I wonder, all the time, if I will ever find someone who speaks about me the way he speaks about you. Your name rolls off his tongue like warm honey, soothes his soul and calms his spirit. It ignites the lover in him and spurs his ambition. He tells me he should have seen it coming, he says it as if it were a punchline he should have expected, but what is he to do when the punchline sucker punches him in the gut and knocks the wind out of him, leaving him anchored to the ground with bruised palms and grazed knees?
The man becomes a boy again this afternoon, in a car filled with loud music he selects from his spotify playlist. He sings aloud to the lyrics that speak for him, that translate his emotions into words. His bed was not the only thing broken at 2 in the morning.
