your soft chocolate skin; the way it feels against mine. I still remember when I first saw you. after-taste of black coffee on my lips, chain-smoking french cigarettes.
our first hello, you kissed my hand. mademoiselle, you said.
but I knew I couldn’t trust you. not back then, and not now.
neon lights of the red district would follow us for the next few weeks everywhere.
bombay tonic, my little black dress. I placed my head on your lap, you stroked my hair. your hair is like noodles, you said. yours is like black sheep, I replied. you’re my sheep. yes, anything you like. we stayed like that for a while before my head started spinning. I lit another cigarette.
countless nights out on the street with no home to return to but it didn’t matter as long as you put your head against mine. sometimes we’d sleep like that for hours. riding buses without numbers from one side of the city to the other. hot, summer afternoons.
but you don’t have any books and it breaks my heart.

summer 2011.

he left before I even had a chance to get used to having him around. but that’s how we are. monday, again. sadness, numbness. packed public transport. coffee on the go. rain. it’s going to rain the entire week. filmmaker is in china on a business trip for two weeks. I am trying to figure out what to do with myself. with people around me. I couldn’t sleep last night. I came home around midnight. showered and fell asleep fairly quickly before two in the morning. then I awoke at three with an unread e-mail on my phone. I replied. fell back asleep for about an hour. then there was another message. and then a phone call. it was five thirty in the morning and I watched the light change behind my drapes. I nodded off but never fully fell asleep again. I left the house for work an half an hour earlier than usually.

how could I ever convey everything I have been wanting to say?

I’m wasting my own words. I used to be minimalistic. I am not sure what happened.

all of a sudden, nothing is enough. I have this constant need to explain and to expand my thoughts to the extent where it becomes irrelevant.

no one is interested, not even myself.

I only want to read and write and educate myself.

and sometimes, once in a while, meet someone who will turn my world upside down.

except one day I will want that person to stay. stay and not leave.

I returned to my endless piece that I started writing a few weeks ago.

I thought I would finish and then delete it, but right now, it seems as if it will never end. I am not sure what I got myself into. all I know that I am finally enjoying myself. in a way that allows me to relax.

I’m sitting here, drinking red white wine, listening to music. but I can still hear the silence.

I can always hear the silence. even with my window open throughout the night.

my shoulders are cold in the morning and I always think of your bedsheets.

at last I finished the letter, which I started writing on the day you left. it’s four pages long and it’s not really a letter, but I needed to write it. now that it’s finished, it doesn’t make me feel any better. all I do is return to it and read it over and over. I haven’t talked to anyone for days. I have only been writing. as soon as you left I returned to writing. thousands of words in a single night. for an entire week. on wednesday I went out, got a little intoxicated, sent emails to the australian. instead of you. now he’s doing the same. it’s how we are. I wish I could write more about it. I wish I felt confident enough to write to you. send you everything that I have been hiding on my disc. one of the reasons I didn’t bring my laptop over to your place was the fear that you would somehow find everything. don’t hate me for this. I’m still working on my insecurities.

another sleepless night in front of me. it’s almost two in the morning. the city is too loud. every single bus that passes down on the street, twenty eight stores below me, I hear it as if it is in the middle of our living room. I can hear the guys unloading fruit at the fruit market less than a block away. every night is the same. nights like these when I cannot sleep I wish I was out there somewhere. in the middle of the red district, talking to strangers, taking everything this city has to offer. nights like these are my least favorite because I can’t sleep and then I can’t wake up in the morning. and it’s a circle and it goes on and on.

you feel so distant right now, I keep forgetting we still live in the same time zone.