I hold back the hair of this Woman that I love as she empties her stomach and her tears in the toilet. It is four a.m. and she is wailing and whimpering why doesn't he love me and I hear a glimpse of myself in her voice; but I keep my mind on the linoleum and my hands in her hair.
Here, kneeling in the third stall on the fourth floor in the first bathroom, I half hate This Woman.
This Woman's name is Beauty and she wears it with grace. She moves too slowly and her eyes are too wide, and even now as her whole body heaves with lost regrets and last drinks, she is stunning against the porcelain of the toilet and the sink; and as her words slur, she grasps my face with her hands and looks at me with thanks and for just one moment—I want to smash her face against the mirror, or at least leave her collapsed and alone; lying on the linoleum.
[Nobody was there to hold back my hair.]
This Woman says she loves me and she tells me I can go and I want to, but instead I keep crooning soft noises and rubbing her back.
But to her hair, I whisper, so softly, Stop crying.
Beneath my murmurs, I breathe to her, Crying only makes it worse and he'll never love you no matter how long you wait or how beautiful you become, or how many drinks you toast to him in the dark that lets you imagine he's there. And you can close your eyes as long as you want but it won't make it any easier to pretend that the hands and the voices of strangers belong to him, because he never spoke to you or touched you that way, but I let them touch me anyway and I'm grateful for the darkness so he won't see the shame in my red face, even though he's not looking at you anyway.
Stop crying, I want to tell her. But I know that in the morning she won't remember I spoke, so I half love her half hate her until I put her to bed.