last night john texted me at 2 in the morning asking me to come visit him at the new bar he was working at in bushwick, and to bring him some blow. i didn’t have blow on me and i was tired but i went anyways cause i hadn’t seen john in awhile. when i got there he was standing outside and his beard was the longest i’d ever seen it. he’s such a handsome man, i don’t know why he covers up his beautiful face with all that hair, but it’s 2012 and i live in brooklyn and these are just facts.

i kissed him on the neck and he smiled shyly. okay. he told me immediately that he was moving three blocks down the street with a girl he had been dating for two months. i was happy for him, and jealous. not of her, but of him, how he could still fall in love! anyways,  she is more than 10 years younger than him. i have  a feeling i’ll be having a lot of these kind of conversations with my 30+ year old guy friends. who i used to bang. and not bang. and so forth.

i sat at his bar and he made me a stiff vodka tonic. no tonic, so ginger ale. he didn’t really have any top shelf vodka, which probably accounts for my persistent headache today. after all the other patrons left and i sat at the bar trying to decipher ashberry’s new poems, when john asked me to meet him in the bathroom.

i was shocked and then i didn’t know why. john doesn’t believe in rules. so i complied. and we tried to do it twice, and the second time, i successfully launched myself in that much coveted cinematic position of against the wall, and one leg on balancing on the toilet and the other wrapped around his very thin waist.

i looked good, i have to admit. i am probably more physically attractive now that i was ever in my early to mid twenties. only because i’ve been doing yoga every day and food no longer interests me. and i dropped like 15 lbs. however, the number of men who hit on me and pursue me is declining at a rapid rate. is it because i somehow look older? or is it the sticky aura of defeat and shame that must cling to me?

i try not to care and do face masks religiously. we must preserve what beauty we can.

if i could, i would tell my younger self, caution. or else you’ll end up having to leave your job with a lump sum of blood money which will wash off easily enough. and you’ll have to travel for a long time, and be quiet for an even longer period of time, and learn more and more how to be alone. solitary confinement is a boon, and a virtue. and you’ll end up on the shores of thailand which you have seen, clearly, in the your mind and you won’t be surprised at all how clear the water is, how fresh the air, the smiling people. all the other lost americans washing up on the shore to forget, the waves forgetting you, forget. to come back anew.