I didn't sleep too well last night again, probably owing to the thoughts that have consumed me for the last couple of days (and the general air of insomnia that I have here in Dubai). I can't help but be sad for the events that I've recently learned of, and it makes me think and relive all the times we break the cold silence after the dust settles and one of us asks: "are we still...here?" I'm realizing that it's a pretty big deal that we're still here and still plugging through life, stabbing blindly in the dark, but together, at least.

I realized too how much he'd grown up yesterday, too. I came home from a day of running around (well, not strenuous running around...brunch, shopping and a two hour Thai massage) with these thoughts on my brain, viciously tearing at my sense of happiness and well-being. At some point, the house of cards fell and I caught myself playing The Pretender's "I'll Stand By You" on loop, with the feelings of plummetting from a contented perch into an unknown darkness. Tony Hendra's "Father Joe" does a great job of describing the fall so I don't have to:

"...there was a chill in the bedroom and in my heart, a surge of cold animal fear that some vast, irresistible force was circling me, stalking me, about to pounce...I was falling, in an elevator with its cables severed, accelerating down into the blackness of the shaft. I opened my eyes but I was still falling - faster now - plunging into a chasm with no bottom...I'd been flung from the battlements of my certainty."

Anyway, it was he who stepped in, on cue, to comfort me. It wasn't like this when things started. It dawned on me when the whole episode had retreated (perhaps only to surface again later on) that for this moment, we'd switched roles. He'd slowly transformed into somebody so able, so capable of something I'd never imagined to get from him. It amazes me still, I think.

I realize too, now, how long the two of us have come, and what hellfire we've gone through to get to this point, and I suppose that knowledge alone is comfort enough that whatever went on back home will never destroy us if it comes down to the wire.

"but please, you know you're just like me. Next time, i promise we'll be...perfect - strangers when we meet, strangers on the street, lovers while we sleep...Perfect, you know this has to be. We always were so free, we promise that we'll be perfect"