On Rue de Bretagne I stood

and I was a blond.

I was alone that summer

and many people and things

passed through my mouth.

Who are you? My therapist

asked every Wednesday.

I’m not sure Jonathan.

I need a glass of rosé.

A chain around my neck.

To be hit even when I’ve been

good (and especially good).

Who are you? I loved him

for saying it that way.

He wanted to know more than I did.

I put so many vodka-soaked olives

in me at Little Red Door.

I told Luka I loved him.

I told strangers more

of my life than I did my own family.

How everything was falling apart

the way it does at the end of love.

Which is a different grief

than death, my friend said

but it’s lonely and not a street

you want to live on for long. 

Whatever. I waved her off.

I stood on Rue de Saintonge

and a man on Grindr offered

500 euros to fuck me.

I was surprised. 2000, I said.

I bought cherries from Monoprix

and ate them on the street.

They were bad. And I knew

that they would be. There was

a fruit market two blocks down

but everything I wanted

that summer was bad.

I wanted to feel empty.

I wanted to be even worse than I was.

1000, he said five minutes later.

And I said okay. I’ll take a bad deal.

Just be cruel, I told him.

And he double tapped on my reply

to assure that he would be.

Who are you? I’m not really

anyone, Jonathan. I’m not

really here. That’s who I was

for 1000. For 2 I would have

put on a show the way Jesus

did when they killed him.

And Jesus was everywhere with me

those days in July. I wore him

around my neck. I drank holy water

from the church on Rue du Temple.

I couldn’t remember names

and I couldn’t remember hours

especially after ten, after sunset

after everything I thought I wanted

was here and not mine anymore.

I wasn’t solar powered.

I wasn’t electric.

I kept reading Alex Dimitrov

over and over in tweets

from people I’d never met.

Trump was convicted.

Carlos Alcaraz won the French.

The boys at Charlot became

the boys at Bacaro

and they knew my face

and they knew my order.

A bottle of Chablis.

A bottle of Côtes du Rhône.

So many texts sent from that bathroom.

The bar. Some place inside me

that knew I was asking

for something no one could give.

I walked Rue des Archives every night

with Lana’s “Flipside” on repeat.

The last minute and forty seconds 

when it’s just the guitars.

I became those guitars.

I became no one’s friend.

No one’s son.

No one’s lover.

At La Perle I fell asleep

in a booth. Jerked off

someone’s friend wearing Carhartts.

I found Maxime and Emile

and two beautiful Russians.

The war continued.

My rage continued.

I stacked so many

le gramme bracelets

on my wrists I thought

I was made of metal.

The screensaver on my phone

was a 16th century German armor

breastplate with the crucifixion

etched over the heart.

And the heart too continued.

What choice did it have.

Somewhere on a terrace

overlooking the city

the Eiffel Tower blinked

through the night.

I passed out in my boots

and chains and my armor.

Every morning at 5

I’d wake up and take off

my clothes. Take a xan.

Try to sleep again like a real person.

What’s a real person, Jonathan?

What’s being a person at all

this far late in the night.

I smoked only Sobranies.

Returned no more texts.

Sent every call to voicemail.

Blew money mindlessly each afternoon.

Not because I had it.

But because I wanted to dig

so far down, if I left myself there

how could anything touch me.

You know, Judas was obsessed

with Jesus. Their kiss. His face.

Everything about him

and how the criminals were him.

The prostitutes. Sinners.

The poor. The wretched.

And Jesus, the first one of us maybe

to find out that anyone who wants you

will surely betray.

Anyone who wants you (turns out)

may not love you at all.