There was nothing to be done but snort the sparkling coke. And then, when we were outside, thank God—or whatever we believed in—that this was Amsterdam. Thank you, for not drawing censure to our brightened eyes and giving us places to put our heightened hearts.

We walked into slow-flying strobes and I felt an instinctive rush of fierce dislike as soon as I saw him. His neon-green muscle tee is so contrived. And he’s wearing aviators. In a club. At night. Fucking douchebag.

Obviously, I made eye contact and drained my drink. Two stones, three birds, one douchebag in a fluorescent shirt.

He brought the equally obvious Absinthe over, said something in French or a really thick accent. It’s too loud to hear him anyway.

The game is always the same; hadn’t this guy’s twin brought over Jäger yesterday? But who wants to think now. Thought is the enemy, thought is an infected wound, thought is a wedding card with your family name on it and cold hands, and then later, yes, relief. But thought is you, and I can’t think about you. I can’t think about you, but elementary, dear mess, that’s all I ever do.

This is the music that reminds me of You, all these songs that Oakenfold and Tiësto and Benassi play. It is never in the Great Love Songs that I find you, never even in Marlow or Donne. I am surprised by this, but then, not altogether confused; the depths of my love will never be a sanguine calm. It will always be fire or nothing at all.

Maybe it’s the way this music swells. This music that haunts our haunts, we who are somehow compelled by our youth to dance together in the dark. It crescendoes step by step, beat by beat, key by key, till it becomes round and fat and pregnant. And we feel unborn, we are just the dark shapes of embryos filled with possibility: there could be love, here, tonight. There could be forgiveness and validation and answers and retribution. But the darkness pounds like crazy and our poisons drive us to regrets and frenzy.

Regrets and frenzy. Regrets, and frenzy. It used to be stupidity, frenzy, then regret.

As suddenly, as unstoppably, as always, there is a short quick jab of memory, of something you said, something you didn’t say. A short, quick jab of euphoria blanketed blue by melancholy. Something to look for again, something to find in different places with different people, something to create because really, it can never be found anywhere else.

Inside the euphoria without him, I chose lesser things. I chose that bed in that room, I left my dress on the stairs of that house, I turned my head into those sheets and they smelled like a baby’s head.

Four years and five days have passed and I cannot forget him.

Flux Pavilion

March 2012