Fuga, flight. Fugere, flee.

Because when I wanted Clair de Lune coming from a Bluetooth speaker on the beach, waves coming close but not quite reaching, sun behind gray clouds, the whole nine, I wanted it with him and not with you. Because when I shiver it’s from the foreignness of your touch, the wrongness of it, like raw egg sliding down your spine. Because when you’re gone I write out envelopes to his address, stamp them, mail him not nothing but the absence of something, one a week. Because when my head’s on the pillow that still smells of him, thoughts hazy and hypnagogic, I wade out into the sea, up to my neck, and feel the weight as I breathe in, one two three. Because when I wander these streets now, hills covered lovely in fog, the mist that dances on grass blades, I see nothing but particles bouncing at different wavelengths, random specks fluttering from here to there, ever separate. Because when I turn your head away from me in bed, turn it till you’re looking at the ceiling and I can be sure you don’t see me, not even from your peripheral, I make the faces that drove him over the edge, the faces for him but not for you. Because when I say fugue you say what, but when I said it to him it could be found in the French, or the Italian, from the Latin fuga, flight, related to fugere, flee.