Slightly Unhappy, Slightly Serene text & photos by Walt Cessna 2010

My cell phone rings and I flinch. This happens alot lately. I'm 50 daze sober and so much is still hanging over me. Is it the doctor with more bad news about my T-Cells? My landlord still anxious to kick me out of my apartment because in a black-out i broke into my upstairs neighbiors and threw his cat in the hall? Or is it my ex whom i still love but know that i can't ever be with again? I've erased his number over ten times in the past month but he keeps calling, finding random reasons to touch base and bring me back to a place I keep trying to move on from. It's not that i don't care about him or how he's doing, but i've learned from experience that if I let him get too close we both run the risk of falling into our comfort zone which we can no longer navigate and a mistake that has almost killed both of us at the end of each of our five break-ups in over three years of ups and mostly downs. Talking him to him is like the sweetest torture, filling me with a longing for the good times we had and wishing there was a way that we both could find to make it work. He says he's trying to get sober, 15 days to my 50. But it isn't about numbers, it's about recovery and our drinking together was just the tip of a very sharp iceberg that threatens to crack into a million jagged pieces unless we both find a way to climb down it's slippery slope. The worst part isn't even that he used to be my boyfriend, the best lover i've ever had. He was my BEST friend. My closest confidant and someone i thought would always have my back. But how could he when he didn't even have his own? Both of us incapable of caring for the other until we found a way to rid ourselves of the unending eruptions of our pasts ant the triggers that consistently shot both of us down, a slow but steady spiral into our personal hells where we sacraficed sanity for self destruction and thought nothing of enabling the other to participate in the worst and most damaging behaviour possible. Three years of love confused by lust, inebriation confused by emotional escavation, companionship at any cost. Unable to be alone for long periods without submitting to the selfish need to bring not only our own senses down, but the person and people around us that we love the most as well. The phone is ringing. I still don't have his new number memorized but I know it's him. I let it go to voice mail and say a prayer to myself hoping he's ok and that maybe later on, when we've both healed some more I'll be able to talk to him without becoming an emotional wrech afterwards. Then I turn off the light and go to sleep. Slightly unhappy. Slightly serene.