She used to get this look on her face when she looked at me and wanted me to know. Her eyes would sweetly narrow and smolder. It said I don�t see anything but you. And it was intense and beautiful and said everything there was to say. She knew I loved her and knew that I knew she loved me. And appreciate is a clumsy word, but it said that too. We appreciated having one another because, at the time in our lives we met, I don�t know what would have happened to us if we had remained alone; if we hadn�t found each other.

This was before I hated myself and could still look in the mirror and believed that it was possible to be loved.

We colored in coloring books and gave them funny dialogue and thought balloons, and did strange experiments in vegetarian cuisine on a stove not much bigger than a hot plate. We were listening to �Sucker punch� by the New Bomb Turks while constructing a Christmas tree out of cardboard tubes and red and black construction paper the first time we made love. Our first time together, her first time with anyone at all. She was twenty-six and I was twenty-three and between the two of us we had almost nothing as far as possessions were concerned. That first Christmas together she gave me a bag of marbles and Barbie bubbles from the dollar store.

She was bulimic. It only took two times of her coming to the door to let me in her building hardly able to walk before I finally got her to confess. I checked out several books in the library and checked with her constantly after that. �Have you been good? You haven�t been fucking up have you?� Fucking up was her phrase for it and was the secret code pertaining only to binging and purging.

She had a one bedroom apartment (and that was the truth most literally), with no air conditioning and two windows that faced a building off an alley. That summer it was nightmarish hot and there was no crosswind or anything much in the way of ventilation. I bought lime pops and ginger brew and we would lie there sweating on her little twin bed in our underclothes. I would�ve slept in the bathtub for all I cared. She was supra de-luxe, I called her the Cadillac of women. I drew strange glyphs on her bed frame with glow in the dark chalk. I would sit at the foot of her bed in the mornings and muse, write contented little poems, doodle pictures for her and leave notes for when she woke up.

We painted together, made collages, hideous sculpy objects, she played snare and read spoken pieces on some of my songs. There was a time when everyday I made sure I had something new to show her and share with her when she came home: a drawing, some writing, music.. We always made the cards we gave to each other for the holidays. Last Valentines came a few weeks after she had broken up with me. I sent her a card with a sad face on the front with two pennies taped inside.

It was all so romantic for a time: I thought we were Vonneguts� �Nation of two�. We talked endlessly about everything and I never got tired of talking with her once in five years. I would�ve done anything for her but it turns out the problem was all the things I couldn�t do for myself.