lovers and lamentations

nico

nico nico nico.
was like a fly in my ear,
buzzing sweet words of adulation.
i knew it from the start of course,
i knew he would break my heart,
but the lies tasted so sweet!
(and admittedly i thought i'd get over it
a little bit sooner than i did.)

nico,
with his dark brown hair.
nico,
with his sea green eyes.
nico,
with his touch like fire.

the first time we met
was at a hotel bar.
we found out later that we were both the same level of underage, though in the dark he looked to be about 5 years older, and in my dress i passed for 23.
what was i doing at a bar? i liked striking up conversations with people. i played a game with myself to see how many strangers i could fool into thinking i was someone else. someone cooler, someone older; with wisdom, class, and glamor.

nico saw right through that.

i found out he was 17, a year older than i was.
i found out that he loved art and travel too.
he told me about crema and paris, amsterdam, seoul, and new york city. he told me he was travelling alone because his parents took, as he called it, a laissez-faire approach to adolescent development. in other words, he was all alone.

the whole night we were staring at each other with an unwavering intensity, playing footsie, comparing hand sizes, i guess i wasn't surprised at all when he leaned over and cupped my face with his hands and
kissed me. his lips were soft and he smelled of bourbon and vanilla.

well, i was always a fool for the charming and tragic, so i let the vagabond traveler with a trust fund lead me to his room.

as he unzipped my dress, he took the time to graze his fingers along my collar bones, my spine. i told him that i only had 3 hours before i had to return to my room. with his breath hot on my neck he whispered,
" baby, three hours with me is worth an eternity."

i'm not sure how to put it romantically, but we fucked everyday after that. i'd sneak off until sunrise to be with him. sometimes we'd visit art museums in the daytime and eat at little cafes at night. nico was prideful and pretentious, but also gentle and conscientious; an entertaining contradiction. i wanted him to be my first real boyfriend, but what's real when you're on vacation?

he told me he loved me, which i should've known meant nothing since nico was the type of boy who loved the whole world and wanted to save everything in it. instead i took it to heart and started envisioning our life together. we could be like beauvoir and sartre, i thought. we could really love each other.

the day after he told me he loved me, he left me
a note that simply said "off to paris!" with a phone number on the bottom.

i held the paper in my hand like a death certificate. would i call him? probably not. would i ever see him again? never. well, what else could i do but laugh? i shook my head as i folded the paper and tossed it into the aureate wastebasket.

oh nico nico nico, i should've known.

then i left and headed for the bar.