For Rui Boy

Dear Rui,

Darling Boy. I have so much to tell you.

If I become silent here in my writing space for a period of time, it isn’t because I don’t think of you, or because you’ve moved even a fraction from my heart, or because I’ve lost hope or let up my efforts. At times like these, the explanations I can offer are few, but they are potent, and close, and  true.

One cause of the silence, as in just now, is that the sorrow of not having you here with me where you belong grips me, and it’s so tight Rui, that words to convey sadness become elusive and inadequate. Even in the best of times, we lack the right words to tell the deepest cut in our heart. My mind and yours, Rui boy, are so melded together, that I know even from far away how anxiously you have looked out on  your world, and wondered why, and sought the answer, and have been met with non-comprehension. I know how you are obligated to please them, to suppress your confusion, to stifle what you can’t quite grasp, knowing it will be met only with the sound of your name,  mewling, morally upbraiding sound, explaining nothing, but charging you the blame for feeling.

If I could hold you, you would have the answer Rui.

Rui, the wind is blowing. The window is pelted with water. It sounds like rifle shots. The air is heavier than it was; it is lumbering strangely like a drunk, and smashing into things.  The sky is a little darker again.  Do you remember rushing through the street with the water hitting us, my shoes splashed in the rivers puddling beside the curbs? We pulled a glass door out of our way, slipped on wet linoleum, we sank into a brown plastic booth I went for towels, it was too cold in our shirt sleeves and rain jackets, all dripping I asked the waiter for a chicken soup and sandwich, we started laughing Rui, laughing; it was like bubbles. I had that deep feeling behind my eyes, like I’d spent too many hours in a swimming pool in the sun, tired, quivering a little, skin pulled tight like it just came out of a laundry. We drew pictures together at the table, with park, with trees, with playground kids we saw; with you and me, there, on the ground, in the booth, through the raining air,  grays, browns, greens, yellow, the blues, with day wearing down to evening, and dark, until it stopped, and it was time … to go.