Ugly Man

So we are reduced to this: where our bodies were once awkwardly in sync, occupying the same space at the same time, a year later we are divided, blind to each other's presence. We've become two moles groping in daylight. And your snout has lost all its supposed animal appeal.

I look past you as I walk down the hallway. You're nothing but a shape to me, a thin, dark shape that's set itself on fire. I can smell you from this far away, and it's that same musky scent, of not having showered for a few days, or of having used the same clothes twice. Behind me, someone calls out your name. It's one of your (gay) friends. He says your name with a twang. You rush towards him, if only to avoid a confrontation with me. You needn't have worried about that, because I would have never turned my head, not ever, knowing you were there, leaning against the wall, texting yet another one of your impossible women. It's hard to believe that it was only last year that we did this together, running from one room to the next, laughing at how we were so old here, how everyone else was so young. While we were lining up at the cashier's together, I saw that you had a chipped right incisor, and it was the color of chewed-up betel nuts. It showed whenever you smiled, which was rare. It's then that I begin to miss you, so I have to stop myself from calling E., to hear his voice, to have him tell me I am (still) loved. But I don't, because all of the memories return, and most of them are far from pretty.

More than anything, I remember what you did to me, what you did to my friend, in your apartment that night. You (were) a lech in the lowest sense of the word. You are so indiscriminate, you'd hit on anything that moved. You would, in the words of my kumare, go after a lamp post if it was wearing a nice skirt. At 33, you are worse than a teenager. You are still all hormones and gangly limbs, though you claimed you'd finally grown into your own skin. I didn't know what had possessed me to allow you into my life, when you were everything, superficially, that I'd abhorred.

Perhaps in your case, beauty really is skin-deep.

Goodbye, Ugly Man.

You are the most embarassing mistake I have ever made.