The decisions she made were based on conversations she had in her head. It was her way of ensuring she had control over the interaction. Her imagination was far more appealing than the reality of her life. She played the role of each person in the conversation. Planning out carefully how they would respond to what she said. As objective as she tried to be, and as much as she tried to present all possibilities of the conversation, she always ended up happy with the results. They always played out in her favor. Thus, she never felt the need to have the conversations.

She broke up with him one, cold night in January. The winter night embraced the world in its mysterious arms. It was an amicable break up. They had both been feeling distant. He couldn't understand her abandonment issues. She couldn't really understand them either. He became complacent. She became removed. Obviously, things were not working for either of them. The conversation was simple and quite lovely…or as lovely as break-ups could be. They came to terms with their wrong doings and realized that they had just fallen out of that freshman love. They kissed one last time for good measure and memories; the cold from outside kept them far enough away from one another so they didn't make any mistakes. Her break-up would go her way. Then they left—lovingly remembering the good, but appreciating the need to exit.

In reality she put the conversation—the break-up—off longer and longer and just replayed her imaginary break-up in her head. She felt the relief of the break-up without ever doing it. But she could see the stale emotions in his eyes. Snow turned to muck, muck turned to city-grade mulch, and cigarette butts magically bloomed into tulips. April arrived and they still had their weekly dates at that tiny restaurant in Alphabet City. They had the same rehearsed conversation about their shared major (history) and how things really haven't changed since their favorite time period (post-Vietnam America). They had fallen into a rhythm: he would take a bite, mid-chew he'd look up as she was lifting the fork to her mouth, they would make quick eye contact and she smiled cheekily as he gulped down his food using gravity to swallow. Bite, chew, look, cheeky, bird-like swallow, repeat. This staccato beat played over the ‘Nam nostalgia while they ate the Number 8 and the Number 12, creating a jumbled song.

As they walked back to his apartment they avoided touching each other. They made sure to maintain a wide distance between them— the once electrifying accidental hand touch had lost all of its spark. After trying for so long to manually beat her heart more quickly at the thought of his smile, his ass, his anything, she gave up; those dull brushes of his hand were a reminder of this failure. Looking into his foggy eyes was somehow embarrassing. She'd forgotten why they had ever made her flutter. The eyes in her mind were so bright. At his apartment they had the regular lackluster, lights-off sex followed by the mutual, obligatory, “yeah that was good.” She covered up as he left her alone. Another rhythm obstructed by time. Another moment that made her feel abandoned. He left too quickly now for her to trace the scruff on his jaw. Instead she slipped back into her clothes and turned on the light. They kissed one last time for the night. A peck that smelled like leftover Number 8. Then she left.

When leaving his apartment the conversations in her head were explosive. In her mind they went back to those days where they first met and this new city was filled with love— they found each other as he played with her hair and she counted the colors in his skin. Their sound fell into place: they locked eyes, electric blue and hazel, his deep laugh and her bird-like giggle, he caught her every time she tried to run away. Blue, hazel, laugh, giggle, catch, release, repeat. Each conversation was new and always set to the sounds of their pounding hearts. They never imagined Number 8’s and those hurried nights in his double bed. But she returned to her apartment unfulfilled and nostalgic for something she only had for a glimmer of a moment. She decided to stay with him because the conversations in her mind of what could be were worth the vapid, weekly dinners and the leftover kisses. So she fell asleep creating her own polyrhythms.

His cerulean eyes popping in the soft fog. His dilating pupils as they walked. He tried so hard after that huge fight we'd had. He picked me up with a huge smile and those eyes. He said to me, “the last time we talked about random things, the last time I kissed you, the last time I said I love you.” A kiss on the roof looking over the city. Sweat and beer and lust. Their fingers are delicate lace. A bird flies overhead. “You're my Daisy. You were the first thing in New York I ever knew.” Crashing through waves in our clothes. Cars rush by, like the sound of those waves. Only the orange glow shed light on his face the last time he said he loved me.