Though I knew this moment would arrive, I tried to hold it back, and now a haiku is much too skinny to explain the depth of what has happened. Maybe I held back too hard because: I broke Time assuming distance and intensity where independent of love. Yes, now you’re beginning to understand the mess I’ve made. Confusion, nervousness…It started innocently months ago when I snubbed her at a bar, turning my back to talk to her friends. Ice clanked in my glass as I said clever things I meant and wasn’t afraid to explain thanks to two beers and a whisky. She was unaffected in the background until I looked into her eyes—those endless brown rivers in which I’d later swim—and emphasized her error, something nobody had ever done. In that moment, the spark flamed slightly in the exhale, fed by oxygen and intrigue…But I broke Time, not her. She punctually arrives to work while the sun circles my unchanging seasons…And even now I’m not sure any of this has anything to do with Time’s heart murmur. I’m not sure any of this has to do with anything. That’s the problem with a broken-down minute hand, the hours onto which reality is anchored float freely out to sea…We began to see each other unofficially. Encounters on an aimless calendar, coffee progressing to meals with silverware. We laughed, rode bikes, slung simple sentences with airy abandon, and unraveled academia without referencing our sources. Always candles at night, no electricity. But she distanced herself despite the increased intensity, popping into my life only when my persistence and her work schedule agreed. In these moments, the flamed fanned outward into forest fires. My room’s concrete walls, along with our responsible attitudes toward destruction, prevented any serious damage…And still Time remains broken, and now I wonder if maybe it’s burned. It might be my fault, though she’s partly to blame. Time’s skin will heal, and by all appearances it’ll live a normal life, probably marry, but just under the surface it’ll be less sensitive to touch. And that concerns me, you know, because it’s Time…But the real issue is this: love is independent of everything. Even Time. I’m coasting away from love, at about seventy kilometers per hour in a northwestern direction. If I could explain how it feels to uproot away from the purest sensation of affection, despite my less effective language as the default and my foreign mode set to permanent, despite the breaking of her distancing and our inability to sleep unless curled into each other, then a haiku would have washed away these finger meditations. But I’ve arrived here confused and haltered on the same word-bloated question. I’m again seeking wondering waiting for an answer. Time won’t tell. Time is broken. I’m on my own now, wetting the embers.
LOCATION: Somewhere between Buenos Aires and Cordoba, Argentina – Just left Buenos Aires and her after two months together; wrote this with spontaneous abandon while on a bus toward Cordoba.
