July - a summer tale by @mariandavp

It was a long night. Nothing happened eventually; we just talked and talked and talked until the sun went up. He kissed my cheek tenderly and asked me to come over more often. I lied that I would and left feeling awkward.

Last time I felt something was years ago. It was a time when I had much desire for desires – dark times. Desires grow like cancers within, leading you to death every single time you get to satisfy them.

“I have died enough…” I said and he seemed to understand.

But love and death come uninvited. They come when his hand pulls your hair from the back seat in the school bus. They come when he gently places your hair behind your ear sitting on a bench by the sea. They come with a drunken kiss in a bar on some island when you accidentally bump into each other. They come when you cross each other running but you are almost holding hands with someone else.

They come disguised as angels from heaven, but deep inside you know they are not because their touch feels likes the touch of a snowflake in the middle of summer. Wrong timing but exactly what you needed, right? A miracle.

You needed to hear the words that would open a billion holes into the black ceiling above you revealing the real sky, the kind of sky that Van Gogh was looking at when he painted Starry Night. You needed to see the cosmic light of these newborn stars reflect on your path, as you are getting ready to walk on his waters. You needed to win the eternal fight with time as he leans his head on your shoulder and his hair blends with yours creating a rope that will keep you hanging from this moment forever.

“Sex is just like any drug, it distorts reality for better or for worse. The real Dionysus lives in the ecstasy of the soul, the rest follows” he says and takes a deep effortless dive into my twisted and confused mind. How many times will I change my mind over what’s important and what’s not? But I am a painter. I can’t skip the surface entirely and that makes him feel somewhat insecure… he doesn’t know how beautiful he is. There was a time when beauty and insecurity were bread and butter to me, but he knows me long enough to keep his guard up.

“I may be older than you but I haven’t forgotten yet.”

“No one heard my side of the story...”

“You disappeared”

“What difference would it make? Would you stand up for me? Would you turn your back to your best friend for me if I proved to you I was right?”

“Back then, no. But I would turn my back to everyone for you now, irrespective if you were right or wrong."

Misplaced in time, we can’t undo what’s been done. We either forget and forgive, or forgive but don’t forget. And neither of us had managed to forget, and no matter how nice his head felt close to mine, a cool breeze whispered in my ear that this should be the closest we ever get to be.

But some SHOULDs in life taste better when you ignore them.

[Οriginal writing and artwork by @mariandavp. Title credits to @tikotiko. Artwork displayed before on Steemit. 2013 Acrylics on canvas,60x80 cm sold to private collector]