At Midnight

I have never been one to endlessly pine for the past. I rarely drink. And throughout my twenties, I’ve mostly avoided insidiously swiping and snuggling beside people I don’t know. I refuse to go on the roofdeck with a tumbler of gin and stare poignantly at that glorious skyline, or sit in a chair by the window and listen to Bob Dylan or Taylor Swift until the street lights switch off.
            Most of the midnight-time, I’m asleep. Because if I am awake, it’s often too quiet, too cold, too lonely, and too tempting not to look. For him.
            At twenty-two, he’s a history teacher at our old high school.
            At twenty-five, he’s married to some guy I’ve never heard of.
            At twenty-six, he’s adopted two adorably blonde boys.
            And at thirty, his profile pics look like Christmas cards—him and his husband and their sons in sweaters, the fall foilage of the Smokies—so out of place in my Astoria, a thousand-ish miles from where and when I really knew him. Now it’s Manhattan five days a week, and waiting for auditions that may or may not come, and teaching introductory classes at the community college, and when all that fails, slinging drinks at a club he’ll never hear of.
            But I’m sure he still wears his flannels. I’m sure he shaves every day. And I’m sure he sucks his husband’s dick in that same shy, schoolboy way. I’m sure he’s stayed the exact same.
            My friends come over and ask who this is on my fridge with the family, and I lie and say it’s my cousin from back home. “We used to be close.”
            And at midnight, when I turn thirty, alone, and in my underwear, going to grab some water, it’s this same picture of him that keeps me from rest.

Lukas Tallent lives in New York City. His work has recently appeared in Door is A Jar, Maudlin House, Fast Pop Lit, and many other places. You can find more of him at lukas-tallent.com. His chapbook, The Compromising Position, is available now from Bottlecap Press.