The Apology

She meets you at a run, her arms open to touch you, to hold you, all these limbs flying and that golden-brown mane whipping into your eyes, stinging them. Her body is earthly and whole and supple and beautiful and real, wrapped in your arms standing there like idiots inside the gates but no more idiotic than everyone else, all the other limbs and lips greeting each other. Your eyes tear up but men don’t cry so you just stand there, suitcase forlornly abandoned at your feet and the love of your life in your arms.

Her lips cover yours, tasting the foreignness on your tongue and seeking solace in your eyes.

And she pulls away, questioningly. Looking at your eyes, searching them.

You feel the lump rise in your throat.

The apology, the bile, the horrid truth, pouring, strangling its way to your lips.

It wasn’t me, it was the salt searing off her skin, the sand crumbling beneath our toes and the sun burning into our skulls. There was too much noise in my head, too much laughter and music and colour pouring in, unbidden, unstoppable. Too much spirits, alcohol spirits and high spirits and hers and mine and everyone’s, too much alcohol, alcohol in the air and in the sand and burning in the sun, and the quick litheness of her body pressed against mine, so innocently too innocently and I didn’t see it at first, I didn’t know what she wanted, she was always too close to me, always with her raven-dark hair and deceptive eyes dragging me into her misery… the cryptic mysterious beauty, this broken-up island girl with a chipped heart and a bright smile, but I loved you and I didn’t know how to push her away and she was too close, always too close and I didn’t know, I didn’t know

She poured herself into me and I couldn’t stop it, the gap from you was too huge too gaping and I missed you and she taunted me with those eyes dragging me in, and I pulled away and she followed me, those eyes boring into my back and the simple difference of her, the novelty of her hips and her legs and her arms and that smile and her youth shimmering at her surface but we both knew she was a broken-up old woman deep inside, with those big eyes holding all the dark glittering secrets and that chipped heart, so akin to mine

And you had been my saviour, the one to fix that holey heart of mine, the one to fix it and make it whole again… but this girl, this young thing flaunting her sorrow reminding me of who I was, who I always had been, the simple broken-ness of her, reaching out to me, clawing at me, pleading with me to save her and she swallowed me in those big eyes, overshadowing and overcoming the memory of you

And I pulled away afterwards, I pulled away and I ran away and I ran and I ran and I kept running, the memory of her eyes and her lips and her hips and her broken-ness soaked into my soul, I ran afraid to look back to see if she was following me, I ran with the smell of her sweat and her soul and her sex fused to my body, her holey heart and my holey heart and our united broken-ness dangling in mid-air

And I ran to the plane to the runway and I ran back home to you to here to now to this moment, wishing and hoping and praying that you wouldn’t notice that you wouldn’t know… that you wouldn’t know that you wouldn’t know that you wouldn’t know…

And standing in the airport there with her arms wrapped around you and her eyes searching yours for solace and her earthly body supple and real and your eyes tearing up… but men don’t cry so you just stand there, suitcase forlornly abandoned at your feet and the love of your life in your arms.

You feel the lump in your throat, the apology, the bile, the horrible rawness of the truth, pouring, strangling its way to your lips… and you swallow it and smile bravely at her, returning her passion with your lips.

“Baby, I missed you…”