HeartBreak---What's Love got to do with it?

Tina Turner got it right when she asked herself and then the rest of the world, "What`s love got to do, got to do with it, who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?"

Tina, I'm asking myself the same thing. I'm wondering what is all this love nonsense and how can we make sense of it? Especially when we so often mistake the physicality of our relationships for intimacy. Maybe this is just bodily chemistry, lips smacking together, bodies beating against each other...maybe this isn't love at all.

As I have mentioned previously, I am going through a really bad break up and I find myself very much over him, and yet not so much over him or the situation. After betrayal and the merciless massacre of my dignity and pride, I could never love him again. When I look at pictures of him, he seems like a stranger, as if heartbreak has distorted my image of him. And yet, as I chilled out in bed watching America's Next Top Model reruns my phone rings, an unknown number. And right before picking up the call the first thought that flashes through my mind is, what if it's him? What if he felt bad, wanted to apologize, what if he realized the grand mistake he has done by leaving me, and what if, what if it was all a dream and I dreamt such heartbreak. This can't be real can it? What's the difference between dream and reality? I don't think I'm ever really awake...I don't ever want to wake up.

I picked up the phone call and there was silence and static, and the unevitable pain that stems from your mind creating fantasies. He told me that once, that I lived in a fantasy world and that my fantasy relationships would never come true. Am i just a dreamer?

So in the spirit of heartbreak...
in the spirit of dreaming...
of fantasies...
This is a snipet of that fantasy relationship, of that dream, oh god, of that nightmare....

He Tastes like Ambivalence

We lay in bed exhausted from a series of “I missed you” love-making. It had been about a month since I had last seen him, and the distance was unbearable. I curl up beside him finding a comfortable spot under his arm, laying my head against his chest, it rising and falling with each breath. I listen to his heart beat, the percussion making my ears thump like drums. I wonder for a moment if this is the way it would always be?

There are no definites, no always, and no nevers. My life is a sometime, it’s a maybe, it’s a sort of—if I’m lucky. But lying there, with him, was the kind of sometimes, I ALWAYS look forward to.

He reaches under me and pulls me closer, his breath caressing my neck like fingertips, warm seduction like his kisses. My body rises with goose-bumps; he rubs them away and smiles. He loves knowing he can get me like that.

My hands gently trace the hair on his chest that run down to his navel, circling around it and then moving towards his sweet allure, wanting him so badly inside of me. I climb on top of him feeling the bareness rub against my inner thighs, pulsating and suddenly he is thrusting inside of me, organic pleasure.

Moaning. Grunting. Pure ecstasy. Background noise of Nick-at-Nite TV shows— Family Matters reruns, the clank of the radiator and the hissing of water boiling and steam—heat—sweat dripping from his body to mine, bathing in intimate secretions and natural lubricants that wash away the longing, the yearning, the constant disappointments. The phone rings, and rings and rings—the permanent soundtrack to our relationship—the phone rings and rings and rings. He reaches over to the night table beside his bed, scrambling through the darkness in TV glow, grazing his hands over ash-tray full of buds and clips, knocking over empty cups and a bottle of Corona—finding his phone amongst the clutter.

“Yo. What’s good?” He answers.
“What you need?”
“Nah I only got dimes”
“Say no more. I got you, say no more. Meet me at the school yard.”
“Right there in front of my building on 183rd”
“Ima go down now”

I sit up in the bed pretending to bask in the aftermath of satisfaction, seemingly entertained by Steve Urkle, “Did I do that” giggling to front. I watch him from the side of my eyes, as he looks for his underwear and sweats. He zips up his hoodie and props his favorite red Yankees fitted onto his head, cocked slightly to match the gangsta swagga I fell in love with far too soon. In silence he kisses me on the lips and walks out the door. I feel exposed, staring at the TV glow. He used to say something, anything. “I’ll be right back baby girl. Get comfortable” he’d often say and in a matter of seconds he was back.

Minutes will go by, maybe even hours, today he may not come back home.