Love does not write in pencil on your heart, it’s permanent. Impossible to erase. Sure, it might one day turn to hatred or disgust, like fresh wounds becoming twisted scars long after they were first carved into your flesh. But you don’t forget it easily. Love can change and it can die, you can lose it or throw it away or cure yourself of the cravings for it like a powerful addiction… but you can’t just erase it altogether.
In the wake of the latest break-up, my life goes a bit High Fidelity. Not through any particular effort on my part, I’m far too busy feeling bitter and counting regrets. But, as if life is being plotted by a scriptwriter with a baffling fondness for my character, two Significant Ex Boyfriends just happen to pop their heads back into it.
The first is a guy I loved long ago: we’ve occasionally caught up over beers and gossip, tracing the wildly different paths each of us took through life in our late twenties and thirties. But we’re 40 now and it’s been ages since we spoke. Pre-Covid, I think – before the world went from ‘bad’ to ‘let’s just not fucking think about it.’ He appears in my inbox – an email address I’ve not seen in years that used to make my heart flutter and my cunt pulse way back in 2006. A ‘how the fuck are you?’ and an update delivered with familiar, bouncy eloquence. He’s all curiosity and casual cheer, so I fall on his message like a life raft in a storm. My heart is bleeding out from recent injuries, maybe I can distract myself by remembering the words that this love wrote on it so many years ago. Softness, playfulness, depravity. Youthful mistakes and foolish fuck-ups but never, ever cruelty.
We go for drinks.
He looks the same. The bastard. How is it possible that life has carved itself so clearly onto my face while this man is still the puppyish, doe-eyed fucker that he was when we parted in our twenties? An outrage. We settle in to catching up: he’s suburban and respectable now, yet polite enough to not judge me for my hedonistic choices.
The love I had for him is still visible in glimpses, stubbornly Sharpied on beneath the scars left by boys who came after. I enjoy hearing his stories. He reminds me of ones we wrote together that I had long since forgotten. I feel lucky that we can still do this – that he hasn’t gone completely. At one point he apologises for something he used to say to me, and it takes me by surprise: I can’t believe this particular ex is sorry about that. The next guy did it so much fucking worse!
I remember the things we used to do, and although the memories are clearer than they might be – thanks to this blog I’m living with one foot constantly in the past – they no longer hold the power they once did. I am not shattered by lust or rendered Bambi-like with need at the sight of him returning from the bar, the way I used to be. This pleases me. I feel like I’ve reached the end of a science experiment: fifteen years, that’s what we’ll write up in the paper for peer review. Fifteen years is how long it takes to stop you from lusting after your red-hot ex boyfriend.
The love though? That still echoes. Love doesn’t write in pencil on your heart. And the love I had for this guy is still there. Faded black marker, like the back of a toilet door: “We fucked here, all tongues and sweat”. Not raw anymore, but still strong enough to drag a smile from inside me and paint it onto a face that’s been far too fucking miserable lately.
Then there’s the other ex. If you’ve been reading this since 2020 or before, you’ve met him. If you’ve been here since the beginning, and paying close attention, I hope there’s a part of you that was a little in love with him too.
Big Ex. Big in heart and body. Enveloping me in hugs and warmth. Fucking me against kitchen counters. Never getting round to making trifle.
The man with whom I tried so very very hard to build a life.
The universe is either playing fun games or giving me prizes, because I could swear on every atom inside it that I accidentally summoned this man myself.
One freezing night, mid-breakdown, just after I’ve told my friends that I’m too fragile to dance and I might not make it to the end of the evening, I go to see Gogol Bordello. Energetic, frenetic, chaotic tunes that make you wanna hurl yourself deep into the sweat of the pit. I barely remember most of the setlist, because as each song ends I grow increasingly aware that we’re a step closer to the one I most want to hear: Start Wearing Purple.
Start Wearing Purple was ‘our’ song. Mine and this ex’s. The core tune which fed the heartbeat of our shared lives. The one which, when it started to play, would cause both of us to stand and square up to each other. Grinning, eager, ready to fucking dance. I have not truly danced with a man since the last time I clung so hard to that one. For some reason new men don’t want to properly dance with me. Shyness, maybe? Self-awareness? An incorrect assumption that I’ll care if they don’t have good moves? Whatever it is, I don’t think any man has danced with me like this guy did, and as ‘our’ song begins I feel a throb of longing in my chest. A desperate wish to spot him in the crowd.
I rock out, raise my arms in the air, and sing along as loudly as I can. I immerse myself in a tune I haven’t listened to in its entirety since the day I said goodbye to this dude. I ache for him in bittersweet ways, and I smile.
Then five minutes after the band leaves the stage, he appears.
Just like that.
Beside me.
Love does not write in pencil on your heart. The second I see him, all the scars burst open. His eyes are bright and full of joy, he’s drenched in pit sweat and I want to fucking lick him. When I ask him how he is he says ‘the same’ and for a second my brain flashes the first line of this blog post – I wonder what implement his love would use to write the story of ‘us’.
A soldering iron, I think. Precision heat, intensity. Like branding. Four symbols I once got seared into my right arm, as a playful nod to one of our silly in-jokes. These tiny, decorative scars are still just about visible in the right light. They get clearer in summer, showing white against my sun-tanned skin.
It burns. It feels good. It hurts. I miss it. It’s dangerous.
I do not say any of this, but I do say some other things I shouldn’t (I’m having a breakdown) and one or two that I should (you look happy) and then I say one thing that’s borderline:
Shall we meet for a drink and a chat?
I know he’ll say yes. It is not arrogant to admit that I know he’ll say yes. I wrote on his heart too, after all, for better or worse but forever.
We hug goodbye before the headline act, and one of my friends sighs as he bounces away:
“Man, I miss his energy.”
“Me too,” I tell her with feeling.
Oh my fucking God me fucking too.
Love does not write in pencil on your heart. The love that matters leaves marks you can’t rub out. And sometimes scars that burst open if you poke them. Whatever you do, don’t poke them.
Not for at least fifteen years.