I'll Be Waiting For You

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I hate to admit, I haven't gotten over you. It’s raining outside. And I’m inside wishing, wandering in my fantasies of us, together again. There's something about seeing water everywhere that makes me think of you. The last I heard you were in Agadez, bound for the desert and for Spain. Before that, you were stuck in Barbados, cleaning fish and dreaming of crossing the high sea–with a canoe, a paddle and the dream of Florida. Damn these emissaries! If only they could just get their geography right, then things would not seem so bad. How can a traveler think of a desert and a canoe in the same journey? It’s all so confusing. Really.

My body is such a drag tonight. The dregs of the wine is clumpy and cold, but I sip the last bit anyway. Making my way to the bed, I catch a glimpse of my shadow cast over the wall. It’s a slouching monster…I think of you. You as a dancer in a desert circus. There is a man with you, and he dances too. In your favourite ripped jeans, you and him and a snake that’s charmed you dance your way to the other side of the world. These thoughts, silly lies that they are, are slowly decaying into truth. I will miss them when they eventually disappear.

The only time I heard your voice was two years ago. It was over the neighbor’s telephone. I entered the living room and in front of everyone breathed hello into the receiver. I loved the raspy static of the bad connection, and wondered how faraway your voice sounded, how ghostly, how hollow. I loved the noise in the background. Was it the din of rushing sea water. Or was it the desert wind? And the finality of the click even before it was all over.

You are one of those who daily leave the streets of our dying country only to float between sea and desert, between life and death till they find the narrow road that leads either to the grave or to Miami or Madrid. I try to frighten myself with this thought but to no avail.

I am waiting for your return. I know it will be sudden, like a thief unexpected. You will come back to me smelling of the miraculous.
I live everyday like it’s the last of the many days of vigils already done in vain. I just hope that you are not that kind of messiah who “will only come when he is no longer necessary.” A messiah who “will not come on the last day, but on the very last day.
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