things can get so close to you that you cannot see them anymore...like fingers reaching to your face, you can see the tips of those fingers until the fingers are touching your face, but when the tips of the fingers touch your face, all you feel is the cool fingertip skin stroking your cheek, and you cannot see that it is happening. you can only trust that it is happening and that it is not a dream. And when the hand withdraws you can feel the lines that the cool fingertip skin traced on your cheek for a minute. and he told me, "after you let go of me i can still feel you holding me." and he told me, "you're a phantom." and i told him, "you'll never get rid of me." then he got up and put his clothes on. a flicker of emotion, a flicker of recognition. like when two people who pretend they don't know each other pass on the street. There's a flicker of recognition and an awkward feeling, a should-i-keep-eye-contact-or-look-away feeling. Keeping eye-contact makes you strong and intimidating. looking away represents your real feeling. I always try to keep eye-contact until the person i pretend not to know looks away. I passed him on the street the other day. a flicker of recogniton. a flicker of emotion. he was holding his wife's hand. I couldn't hold the eye-contact. he was staring at me with burning eyes. I was overcome with guilt, because his wife was a beautiful woman. and she was my best friend once upon a time. Oh well. I never claimed to be a good person.