SEND IN THE CLOWNS

I flirted with danger, like a deer that gazed at the round lights of an incoming truck along a dark highway, I knew the looming disaster was bound to come but I didn't move from where I was standing.

That’s what it was like to be involved with a married man.

He says before he knew me, he was one of those faceless shadows hovering in half empty stalls of some dank men’s toilet in some unknown double-featured cinema downtown.

He says before he knew me, he was a lost soul yearning rest after a day’s labor. I saw him once a week. I gave him pleasure.

He says before he knew me, he’s never used his real first name when meeting another in some dark motel room and never seeing each other again once their thirst was quenched. I made up a name for him when I thought his real one sounded awkward.

He says before he knew me, he’s never known the real affection of another man that held him as tightly like I did. He would fall asleep every time in my embrace.

He says before he knew me, he never thought he’d never find rescue. With me, he was saved.

He says before he knew me, he thought his family was he only thing that mattered. I mattered more.

But after a year, when the looming headlights hit me, I found they were all lies. He never needed rescue. When he closed his eyes and I was beside him, the whole world disappeared. When he opened it, he realized what is real. His child was more real, while I was but a moment's fancy.

He flirted with rescue when he never really needed it. I toyed with the idea of forever being with the only one during those months of ecstasy. I was so wrong. I only had hurt and indignation as companions at the end of the affair.

Years have passed and he’s been long gone. Only the memory of those months stayed. And all this time when I look back, well I thought, my life with him then was so much full of farce. We were like clowns that played a hurtful game in a circus that is life.