“It wasn’t a secret. The first day we met I told her I was bisexual, and that I’d been with men and women my entire life. At the time she shrugged it off. And it wasn’t an issue for the first ten years of our marriage. The relationship was perfectly loving and stable. But then I don’t know, something happened. It wasn’t a particular man. I never cheated on her. It was something abstract. I just missed relationships with men. So I told her. I was honest. But when I uttered that thing it was like a bomb went off. She turned away her face like she’d been slapped very hard. It caused her so much pain. She lost a lot of weight. We cried and cried and cried about it. For three years we cried. We’d meet at Starbucks every day and cry in front of everyone. We didn’t live together after that. And we were never sexual again. But we were still intimate. We still took a lot of naps together. I always held her. We’d go shopping and walk arm-in-arm. She kept my last name and called me her gay husband. Her health began to deteriorate in 2007. It was a nerve disease. She lost her hearing. Then her sight. And I took care of her. She always told me to forget about her. To go out there and find a good guy. But I stayed by her side. We’d never officially gotten divorced, which helped in the end. They let me in the hospital room as her husband. I wasn’t allowed to touch her, but I was right next to her as she died, breathing with her. It’s been two years now. I’ll move away soon. There’s nothing left in this city for me. But first I’m going to have a ceremony in Central Park, and give an envelope of her ashes to everyone who loved her. I don’t know whether to call her my wife. It’s not important to me. Alexandra was the love of my life.”
jbbartram-illu
stormborns
kianamaiart
titsay
dededos
2087
theartofmadeline
andulkaphoto
