Corey (RIP)

Your clear eyes

Lock on mine, imploring,

Betraying your badass tattoos & man muscles.

Sharp dark features

Pit bull face.

You, half dog, half gun,

That tight, handsome body.

Dependent & irrational,

Vulnerable as a boy.

You want to try

Again with me,

So we tried.

At 19, in Easton, I’d look through the dry clean window, across the parking lot. There you were - spitting, yelling, smoking cigarettes, talking shit, pacing back and forth with that grin that made me lose my mind and fall into your skin. You’d choke me just hard enough and bite me just soft enough and penetrate both holes at once until I couldn’t figure out which way was up.

I lead you, guided you, calmed you,

Loved you.

I always drove you home.

You always got me high.

Sometimes you’d stop calling

So you could disappear for a while...

I hated it when you’d disappear for a while.

Did you forget,

Begging, pleading,

Head tilted to the side,

Asking me

To try try try?

You’d always reappear.

We’d end up back in bed.

Hands pulling hips closer,

Too much liquor too fast.

Raw summer nights,

Drawn, greedy, to fragile souls,

Excited, intoxicated anger,

That always faded by the morning.

Couldn’t ever help ourselves,

Could never get enough.

.

I’ll never forget that text. White tents on the water, in the foreign sea, learning about Corey.

Tears dropped from my eyes into the ocean, toes wading in the waves. I wanted to strip off my dress and dive in and swim and choke and scream and cry. But it was raining and cold and I didn’t have a towel. A few seagulls flew by, squawking, “Chill the fuck out, Justine.” I told them that I didn’t want any more angels.

Another tragic hometown spiral, like on the show “Heroin: Cape Cod, USA” but real life, not on screen. I don’t need to watch the fucking series to tell you how it goes...

.

He wasn’t weak, just broken.

Caved in, lost and hurt.

I wanted to fix you

Undo the black and blue...

Searching, never finding,

Protecting at all cause.

Now, he cannot even call

He lives among the stars.

I’m sorry this world broke you.

And you couldn’t get back straight

I wanted to heal those aching wounds.

If only I could heal these aching wounds.

.

Later that night, at the club in Miami, she said “here, I found some for you.” I put out my tongue, let it slide down my throat. Help me numb the pain, please. We danced and bobbed and let the music hold us up.

I salsa danced with a friend. Quick turns, tight waist, close face. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “We’ll come back, I promise. They won’t even notice we’re gone.”

The tumbling, turning, athletic sex, a rodeo that moved from every corner of the bed until we had no more real estate and used the floor. Disorienting my equilibrium so much that I did not know which way was up or down, but from the side of the bed I turned my head to find his cock and gulped it down. He grabbed my hips and lifted them up and once again we were together.

It was deja vu. Choked and fucked and penetrated like he used to. I swear to the seagulls it was Corey. Do you feel it now? Do you feel anything now?

We rode back swiftly into the night, windows down, speakers blazing. Our friends on the curb screaming “Where the fuck have you been?!” then pilling six deep in the back seat.

At the next club the sun came through the ceiling. The tented roof let the rain in, like a movie scene.

We could see each other clear. Night faces in the morning. Then, dozens of red, red roses appeared, passed from hand to hand, drawn across our faces like blush brushes. Mouth to mouth, heart to heart. One in my hair, my aching heart.

Corey.

.

You left behind a confused blur

Us wondering our fate.

Remembering is such a hard thing...

Imperfect, incomplete.

You never had me entirely,

But also always did.

Searching for ourselves inside the other...

Young and drunk in love.

Kindred, in our connecting.

I wish I said I love you

While you were still alive

I wish I saw you one last time

To hold you and lock eyes.