burningtreebooks

[burningtreebooks]

autumn leaves

She was a crack whore with a heart of gold, at least that's what she would call herself, but I saw her more as a lost soul, a leaf falling from a large tree, an acorn lost in the city. we'd met downtown, near the Coffee Hut; she thought I was a John, and I thought she was a prostitute and after we cleared the air, we decided to get coffee. she had a beautiful face, and a missing tooth; she had a tattoo on her face of something in a Arabic. she had some street in her voice, said things like, you know, it's just cause you gotta go where you gotta go. I was married, had not intention of sleeping with her, but the more I spoke with her, the more her words and her face and her story pulled me into their tragedy. we got a hotel, drank cheap wine, and the sex was sex, somewhere between a workout and a mystery. I had never cheated on my wife before, so I knew this meant I had broken it; I felt sick, but I must have wanted to break it or why do this? I can't remember the woman's name, but saw her a few times downtown riding in the car with my wife on the way to Nordstrom or the Gap. When I finally told my wife about her, it had already been 3 months, and it seemed like a lifetime ago, so much so I wanted to put her in the category of past life loves like all the girls I had slept with before I met my wife, but I knew she deserved the truth. She is an honest, hardworking woman. She has integrity and is fierce to the bone. When I told her, she just stared at me, looking through me, erasing me, until she said only one word, "weak." She was right. I didn't argue. Then, the days passed and I felt this wall growing between us, a wall the erect everywhere we went. I became hard to speak over it. Sometimes I'd try to chip off a brick or dig under it to say something, but she would pretend not to hear. Once in a while, we'd forget the wall was there, and find ourselves touching or laughing or looking in each other's eyes, but then the wall would fall, and it would be all the more painful for remembering. Then she said she was leaving, that this wasn't the life she'd wanted. She said without trust, we're nothing, we're strangers. She was right, but we had always been strangers in my mind. I felt as if she understood only half of me, and though she loved that half with all her heart, she didn't even know the other. I didn't know this then, but after she left, and I lived alone for a few months, it dawned on me how little I missed her, even after all we'd been through. And this is when I began to feel better, and even though I should have been stronger, and found a better way to break it off, I was weak, and that is what weak people do sometimes in order to become strong. Last year she remarried a man that looks just like her; they are a handsome couple. I am happy for her. I am still single, but I ran into the crack whore with a heart of gold last week at the grocery store. She was also with somebody, and gave me a sly smile as if to say I will keep it a secret if you will. But I didn't want to keep it a secret and went home to write this story. I am not sure why. I just wanted to get it out and look at the mess I'd made. I wanted to see if there is anything beautiful to be saved from chaos, and if there is, then we have nothing to fear or regret in this life, ever.