Men

They patronize you, ask you for a review of their carelessly written books. They ask you to write things they can but don’t want to write. They send you questions to answer for their graduate studies, even ones beyond your capacity to fabricate. They email you, say they are agents of such-and-such company, would happily "hop on the phone" to discuss the matter you’ve readily deleted.

They are people you barely know, strangers who owe you cash they don't have plans of paying back. They disappear for good until they come back as some starving artist, bearded or bald, who does the same thing, the same way or another, like wrapping their arm around your neck until you gasp for air in the middle of an art fair.

They appear in quaint bookshops, hand you a book whose title you would later realize as a sexual insinuation, only after you've naively tried to recreate with them that film you so loved.

They sit at the next table reading, white-haired, would approach and befriend you, give you books, promise you their library, lose touch.

Sometimes you hop on their motorcycle because you were stood up, broken, don’t know what you’re doing.

Years later they would resurface either with an injured head or with a cap on. You couldn’t tell who they are even after you’ve long turned your back, run through a set of faces in your mind, with which you mark the years.

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