For my Valentine

You know what I'd like? To have a few hours with you, when I could explain why I like you the way I do. I see us, sitting hand in hand on the beach on a stormy night. You'd be in your wheelchair, I'd be wearing something that flaps in the wind. I'd apologize for having to make you like this, for having to break your legs, break your teeth, cave in the back of your head. You'd look at me with that silly grin you have now, the one I love - it's so unconditional, so different from how you used to smile, the half-indifferent, half-contemptous smile. Your thin shoulders would twitch in the cold of the sea-mist - you don't like wind and water the way I do - and I'd talk to you, tell you the first time I saw you, sitting there with a cigarette and an attitude the size of Brazil. How I instantly wanted you because I knew you wouldn't want me. I may be sick, my darling, but you're the cripple. Don't look hurt, you know where we are. This is the sea, it is night, we are alone. Why wasn't I good enough for you then?

The thing is, I brought you down. I followed you home, I lured you away, and like a fool you followed. Then I took you apart, and I realized how you function. It was sad. I stopped loving you then.

But I'd already broken you, no? What else could you do but stay? What was I supposed to do with you? I didn't break your jaw out of anger, darling, I just wanted to shut you up for a while. Just for a little while. The screams had to stop, I couldn't hear myself think anymore.

You breathe harsher than you used to. Is it the cold, or are you afraid?

It's a beautiful night, eh, love? The kind that makes your heart pound with the longing of it.

Tide's coming up soon, they warned us to stay above the low line. We should go now.

Waves washing in. The rocks can bear it, but they will be sand beneath someone's feet one day. They will crumble and break and go out to sea and find their way to the bottom. They'll filter through the sea-bed and try to go to the centre of the earth. They'll be liquefied with the heat, but their particles will make it.

The moon's just hanging there, like some kind of ancient dim lantern. I see the black and purple haze of clouds swirling around the sky, I taste the coming storm in the strong, cold wind, and the fierce joy of it makes me want to weep.

I'm going to go back to the house now, love. I've had enough. I can't take this anymore.

Stay here. I know it's low, yes. Don't clutch at my shirt, you're embarrassing yourself now. Of course we're below the level of the tide. You're not that stupid yet.

Let go, I said. Concentrate on the waves coming in. They'll carry you out, hopefully, and if you're lucky, you'll miss those rocks. I'll take the wheelchair back now, thank you.

Don't cry. Be a man. There, there. I'm not an emotional kind of girl, you know. But it's Valentine's Day tomorrow, in a few minutes now actually. Look at me, getting all sentimental.

Oh well. Goodbye, sweetheart.