He never calls....

He never calls me anymore.

He doesn't call, write, e-mail, or send packages in pretty brown paper that smells like the earth-conscious grocery store. I can still remember when he did. E-mails, even one-or-two liners, caused me happiness for an entire week. I loved his presents, one a birthday, every other Christmas. I don't know if he notices the patterns, but I do know that I do. The presents are usually a CD or a movie, and, whatever it is, I'll leave it running all night. I'd tuck the earth-smelling package paper under my pillow, and, like incense, its bittersweet aroma would fill my room and tickle the insides of my nose as I slept and dreamt--usually of him. And every time I see that the little red flag is down on my mailbox, I run to it, to see if one of the envelopes there has his name on the return address. I would read and reread and re-reread his letters, formed to words, formed to letters, until I understood every word, every undercurrent and possible meaning. Then I would stare at the way he wrote my name--my name!--until the ink on the paper didn't make one bit of sense anymore.

But most of all, I loved when he would call me.

He has a remarkable voice on him. In a phantom of a breath, it can change from witty, caustic, to honey dripping golden into his phone, through the phone line, across the UNited States, and into my ear. In another fraction of a heartbeat, his voice will be deep and comforting. Whatever sound from him I hear last is the sound that I like the very best.

Except, that is, the last voice he made. Strangled, angry with himself. The little sob and then the long dial tone which tore my heart apart. I try not to, but can hardly help dwelling on this. It has turned into one of his presents--playing on repeat through my mind as I sleep.

There are so many times when I've almost fallen apart completely. I am sorry, I am sorry, I e-mail to him, but these are never sent.

Birthday number sixteen, and no little package arrives for me in the mail. All of my presents are wrapped in shine, foil wrapping paper.

I have given up hope, but now my happiness. I have given up strength, but not my heart.

He never calls me anymore. I got no well-wrapped, earth-conscious mailbox filler from him. Yet somehow, with happiness and heart still intact, I think it's just a little bit better when he shows up at my doorstep, drenched in rain and face filled with that smile that I only imagine when I'm talking with him on the phone. I hold him and cry into him. He speaks to me in that golden honey dripping voice, no phone line or twelve states between us.

This memory, I play over and over as I sleep. I don't know if I will ever believe in anything else again.

Smiling as I dream (of him, as always) I realize that I don't have to.