BEFORE I DIE, I PRAY TO BE BORN | ✓

▬▬ 02

SATURDAY
05 OCTOBER, 1996
ISAIAH

               How many times do I have to kill you before you stop coming back? I've been trying to bury you for six years and just when I think I've managed, just when the only living reminder of you are the phantom pains in my now-hollow ribcage, you cram soil in my mouth.

I buried you not six feet into the dirt, but ten, twenty even, and still you crawl out of that grave. I could chain you to the core of the Earth and it wouldn't keep you.

Even now, all I think about is you.

Even now, as I belt my jeans before he gets the condom off.

All I'd like is to leave before he has the chance to speak but I'd like to wash my hands first and he's standing in the way. That's not his name but it's what I've called him in my head. Daniel: God is my judgement. Feels fitting.

I always choose Torahic names. Maybe it was funny at first.

Just as I won't accept his, I won't give him mine. Isaiah, God is my salvation... Might as well tell him plainly that my mother bargained back her place in the Garden by offering up mine, I know nothing about my father, and I've long since become comfortable with the fact I'll spend eternity in Gehinnom.

I won't ask him to disagree, to attempt to hack through the vines of shame that strangle my skeleton like ancient ruins — simultaneously a cage and scaffolding, sever one and I can't promise it won't collapse. It takes delicate skill to weed shame without untethering my bones. We all know you were the only person capable of that.

Besides, judging by his earlier comments, Daniel isn't the kind to disagree if I brought up Hell. If he did, we wouldn't be in this toilet together.

The hypothesis is proven immediately when he drops the condom into the rubbish bin and glances at me with a glint in his eye. 'What's your boyfriend gonna think?'

'He ain't my boyfriend.'

His mouth twitches. He doesn't believe me.

Is he more homophobic than I expected or do we still look like lovers? How can a stranger, six years later, take one glance and know the only place I felt at home was beside you?

To defend myself, or maybe because I need to talk to someone and, since he's here and doesn't know my name, I might as well tell him, I divulge a crumb. 'He was my best friend. Long time ago.'

'What, you try to suck his dick and he wasn't into it?'

I smile; simplified to its rudimentary equation, he's not too far off.

I watch him clean himself before he pulls his boxers and joggers up from his ankles. He's fit, objectively speaking, and yet, I struggle to find anything attractive. That'll be Dorian's fault. Just when I started to forget his face enough to fabricate it in others, he decided to remind me, and now, I'm once again reduced to comparing every countenance to his.

Daniel's skin is lighter than Dorian's and nowhere near as smooth. I'm sure he considers moisturiser a threat to his masculinity. His hands, during the brief moment they accidentally slipped under my shirt to cinch my waist, were chilly and clumsy. I haven't looked into his eyes even once but I assume they aren't the kind you gaze into for hours — days, lifetimes!

'Sum like that.'

I move to the basin to wash my hands. Through the mirror, Daniel allows his gaze to saunter over my skin — which is a tawny brown even in October because I wasn't outside enough to get a tan this summer, my round shoulders, and settle on my blouse which was probably intended for women.