Right after I finish writing this, I am going to call you—fuck texting.
You will pick up and I will tell you how badly I want to fuck you. You will be responsive to this, I know: Play-Doh in the face of patriarchal onslaught. I am going to tell you all sorts of nasty things and you will be flooded with emotion. You will remember how much you miss me. You will realize that you miss me as much as I miss you. Ultimately, you will realize that the last few months have been a mistake.
You are going to be so glad I called. You will feel foolish for all the incorrect emotions you have had since we broke up. But it won’t matter: all will be forgiven and we’ll get back together. Unlike every other couple that has ever gotten back together, you and I will stay together. We can make it happen, I promise.
Once the phone call ends and we have had getting-back-together-sex, I will guarantee you everything. We will go out and buy you a big ring. It’ll destroy my life savings, but regardless, I promise to never be stingy ever again. We’ll go out to eat all the time like you always wanted. I’ll constantly buy you presents and flowers, too. You will love every second of our second relationship.
We will never fight, I know. It will be eternal bliss. Nothing but rimjobs and euphoric birthday celebrations. When I pack up all my stuff to move back in with you, I’ll throw out every piece of clothing I had in high school and buy nice suits instead. I’ll become a real American and put it all on credit. We’ll be in debt but not care, like normal people.
You will be better, too. I know. You’ll never be annoying, you won’t smother me, and whatever other shit about you that I didn’t like will stop being so. I am sure of this, more sure than I have been about anything else in my life. All your personality flaws, and mine as well, will evaporate once we become a couple again. Nothing else will fix us.
Don’t you get it? It’s you and I, as one, or it’s over. If we don’t get back together, your heart will permanently break once your fertility passes its expiration date, unused. Meanwhile, I’ll become just another pervert whose salad days have long passed and is now just old and weird. Should we stay apart, in less than a decade you’ll be flipping through Oprah magazine and crying while I’m scrolling through 4Chan jerking off.
Together, we can undo the prophecy. We can reunite and fuck this prognosis into oblivion. Let me just come over and eat your ass while you bite into your used panties. That act, committed now, will undo every past ill and every future misfortune. I promise.
I’m going to call you now—be sure to pick up.
***
“Nostalgia, Regret, Libido” is an excerpt from Richard Power’s new memoir, Letters from a Heartbroken Pervert. You can purchase the book from Terror House Press here.
Richard Power is the author of Letters from a Heartbroken Pervert, available from Terror House Press.
