I don't remember the last time I lay in bed or sat at a table, stared at the face of someone I love, and drank my fill of that moment, thirsty, longing.
The fact that I do not remember this means that it has been too long, that I have wasted days, wasted nights, wasted time doing the kinds of things that people do to distract themselves, console themselves, and delude themselves into thinking they have days, nights, and time to waste.
It's late July. The days are long and hot, stirring disquieting reminders that wasting time is the easiest choice people make. Most people don't even realize they're making a choice. Some drink from bitter cups, some reach for whatever is nearest.
On cool evenings, I distract myself by standing outside my apartment in Harlem, smoking a cigar, chatting with my neighbors, and watching people and cars pass by as the sun begins to disappear behind Broadway. As strangers pass by, I wonder what their lives are like, what they've sacrificed to convention, or if they, like me, delude themselves, forgetting that days turn to decades; forgetting that time eventually runs dry.
I suffer from sidewalk crushes. Glimpses of women that inspire brief reveries of what it might be like to love them, be loved by them, and to fall into some domestic orbit, surrendering our distractions to infatuation with nary a thought of ephemerality.
Between draws on my cigar, I think about the attractions that still simmer, the loves left undeclared, the encounters that transformed time into memory and, in just the space of a few hours or days, refreshed everything I thought I knew about love.
Somewhere in Paris. Somewhere in Rome. Somewhere in Hollywood. Somewhere in Chicago, New York, or Washington D.C. Somewhere in those and other places are traces of the days, nights, and time that I drank to the dregs.
In savoring those traces, I remember the last time I drifted into a stranger's wild orbit, felt her fingers entwine with mine beneath a table, out of sight. I remember the spice and amber perfuming her skin, the wine-taste of her mouth, and the promise of her feral touch to transform our time into memory, into thirst, into longing.