Let’s Go Back to Zipolite (P)
Let’s go back to Zipolite.
Let’s go back to that empty beach where it was just you and me. Let’s go back to that beach where I realized I was truly in love, truly happy for the first time in my life.
I brought that strong ganja from Juchitán, and we smoked it. For a split second, I almost resorted to my anxiety, to the creeping existential crisis that comes with knowing everything good must end. But in that split second, I decided to feel happy—to let myself enjoy that moment with my lover, even if it was the last time.
As if sensing it, you asked if I wanted to race to a pole with a red flag. I said yes. We raced, and you won. You asked if I wanted to race back to our blanket, and I said yes again. I ran as fast as I’ve ever run before, but you still won. Your legs are longer, and you did track in high school. I had never felt so alive. My body was electrified.
One morning, I opened my eyes and saw your left eye staring at me, your lashes swept up like they had been licked by a cow—though it would have to be a tiny cow. In that instant, I asked myself: Am I still dreaming? Can I wake up to this man every day for the rest of my life? Or his? Wishful thinking.
On our six-hour drive to the beach, we kept seeing watermelon trucks. Some watermelons were cut in half, laid out in the sun to seduce passing cars with their sinfully red flesh. You could taste the sweetness just by looking at them.
“I want a watermelon,” I said.
“Keep driving, we’ll get one when we’re closer,” you commanded.
Ugh.
Then we stopped seeing the trucks because we had entered the mountains. I told you I would throw a fit if there were no more watermelon trucks for the rest of the way. When we finally reached the coast, all we saw were coconuts. But then, one lonely stand had a few watermelons.
“I’m making a U-turn! You promised that next time we saw a watermelon, I could get it.”
“Fine.”
For the next three mornings, we ate watermelon as sweet as honey in our open kitchen, overlooking the jungle and the ocean. Life was so sweet.
We left our balcony doors open through the night so we could hear the waves—only a mosquito net separating us from the jungle outside, and nothing separating our bodies.
One evening, we agreed to take a rest before dinner. We were just going to lie there and listen to the waves lapping at the shore. I threw my leg over your body, and you held it with your hand. We had never been as close as we were then. I took a picture on my phone to immortalize that moment. Later, I posted it in a slide on Instagram, and someone put it up on their story.
“I have what others want,” I thought.
We had built our own castle there—but little did I know, it was a castle made of sand, and soon it would slip through our fingers.
The entire trip, you were my muse. I had brought a bunch of film and couldn’t stop taking your photos—after all, you are the most beautiful man on earth. But when I developed the film back in New York, I realized that in most of the photos, you had your back turned to the shutter. As if you were always walking away from me.
I was swept up by nostalgia. Why do I have to go back to waking up alone? Why can’t we have what we had on that beach forever?
You said it was difficult for you to hold on to those feelings. Did we just make them up? What now?
Now it’s over. Back to reality. We’re off again. It’s been like that for the past seven years that we’ve known each other. We can never meet in the middle, like the sun and the moon. Me being the sun—or maybe I’m just always pretending.
You said you don’t feel the same about me. I said that it was okay, that you don’t have to. Then you said you didn’t know if I was your person. That hurt me—after all these years, after everything we shared on that beach.
I mean, we raced. Together.
I know we are from the same soul family. But maybe this is our karma. And that’s okay.
I’m letting you go—for now. Maybe in this lifetime, or maybe in another. Maybe when the sun and the moon finally meet.
But until then I am learning to love myself.
