thursday, april 12th

when i arrived home, no one greeted me. no one - as in, no one had arrived home yet. strange, i thought myself late and quite expected to see martin there, puttering about waiting for my return/arrival. not so. surely he finished work, by 1700 hours? i called, to check. indeed, he had finished. so .... where could he have gone? it puzzled me. martin - he's not a man given to wandering off for hours or days on end, like his brother. my martin - he comes home to me. if he does not - it means something horrible.

and so ... i began to think. about the baron, who died suddenly 28.03.07 of a brain aneurysm. his only symptom - a headache. and his passing struck us all (in the blogosphere) so suddenly. who would have guessed ... until after the fact? after all, one never knows. and so my thoughts became more and more unnerving. and my anxieties, more and more intense and ugly. to the point where i felt this incredible urge to just jump out of my skin. and ugly, fearful place to exist. i thought ... for at least 2.5 hours ... martin had died. and so, i stood outside, in the middle of the street, in the pouring rain, wrapped in a red blanket, uttering (in some crazed echolalic speech) 'please come home. please come home.' and he did not. not yet.

i went inside eventually, hoping to distract myself from the new reality i had painted for myself, in my mind's eye. i put my weed away, in anticipation of the cops knocking @ my door - what if they came a-knocking to tell me .... and i had this stuff on the coffee table, in full view? and so i put it away. and i contemplated my life ... without the one, whom i decided, last year i could NOT leave. i could NOT leave him. long periods of physical separation feel like long periods in anoxic chamber. oppressive - all the fear and anxiety squeezes my soul. how could i possible resume the road of life without martin? sentiments such as this looped thru my head - and infinite iteration. and i cried. sobbing cries, that emanate from the rawest visceral core of oneself.

i needed to leave. i needed to stay. i kept the cell phone close at hand. did he have his wedding band in his pocket when he died? did he have even the tiniest piece of paper with his new address on it? what if he died, alone, in the strange ugly world, and no one could get to me? no one could connect martin to me? what if .....

i needed to go outside. and smoke some serious drugs. i could not. inertia paralyzed me. and the last time i went out to smoke a joint, i ended up standing in the middle of the street, crying, begging for his return. and so ... i do not honestly know how long i sat there.

i thought. thought of who i would call ... anupam flashed into my mind. but his far distance precluded the viability of that preference. andrea - but my having burned that connection precluded that. and ... somehow - it didn't seem right. and then i knew who i would call. teresa. my dear friend of 25 years. my beloved childhood secret-keeper. one who knows me still. that's who i would call.

and i thought. some more. perseverated. obsessed. insanity. its so much closer than any of us think. one has really no idea just how close. insanity lurks so near us all, my friend, you can feel his breath on your cheek. in fact, on that evening - thursday, april 12, 2007 - insanity touched his lips to mine and drew the deepest breath. that's how it felt.

until ..... until ....

i heard the key in the door. i could tell by the deft, swift movement, the key holder's identity - not logan. and so then .... martin. and ... indeed, the wolf came home. late ... oh-so-late .... but he came home to me. of course, he had a completely reasonable and logical explanation. but .... in the meantime, truth = perception.

and that truth i lived for 2.5 hours? indescribable. ugly. frightening. surreal. completely and utter surreal. a place i do not want to revisit .... ever. though, i know i will, some day. hopefully long in the future. because, i can not do without him just yet. not just yet.