A Night With A Stranger

I couldn’t sleep.

I found myself sitting on the side of the bed, negotiating with the hurricane that had blown through my life.

I made my way to an all-night diner for people like me who find themselves wide awake while everyone else sleeps. All members of a club with no name and only one rule, "Don't judge me and I won't judge you."

I was in need of a gentle hand stroking my back. I needed to hold someone and be held. I needed to spend time with someone who knew nothing about me and who wouldn't ask the questions everyone asks.

I needed someone to stay without leaving and leave without staying. I needed a bright shade of blue upon my weeping, blank canvas.

Two stools down the counter, sipping coffee and reading an old messed up copy of “Beautiful Losers” by Leonard Cohen, sat a man with a face chiseled and shaped by the greatest artists of all time. He was wearing a white t-shirt, faded Levi's and Converse shoes. His arms were graced in tattoos of wolves and wilderness, his veins alert.

I sat next to him and we began some small talk that served as a detour to us exiting the diner together, back to my place.

It was raining.

We were soaked to the skin by the time we arrived so we undressed quickly and met in the middle of the bed.

He kissed me with full lips as his tongue explored my mouth. I kissed his neck and moved my way along his body.

I smelled him the way you smell someone the first time you are naked with them – breathing heavily, bare and beautiful.

I tasted him - sweet and smooth.

We rocked back and forth, his hands gently caressing me as if we had been lovers for years, caring for one another whenever the world was cruel.

A rhythmic waltz transcending our minds to a better place away from the noise, simmering everything down to a whisper.

He held me as if he would never let me go. Awakened were parts of ourselves that otherwise lay dormant in oblivion.

He kissed me one last time and vanished behind the closed door as if it never had opened.

I fell asleep with his taste upon my tongue, all the while knowing I would be running on empty with the inevitable rising of the sun.

We are all BEAUTIFUL LOSERS searching for a sliver of light on our deepest, darkest night.