Last I wrote, Ex and I had finally come to blows. I shoved him. Hard. So hard, apparently, the next day his shoulder turned black and blue.

Bruising my ex-boyfriend may have been exactly what I needed to finally begin healing my own injuries. These last two days I've felt better. Not exuberant, not good, not even comfortable or happy, but better.

Other events besides the bruising contributed to my new-found "better-ness." For one thing, my dad gave me another unexpected shot of wisdom. Talking me down from yet another crying jag, his voice only slightly impatient, he said: "Think about why you're crying. You're not crying for the relationship you had; you're crying for the fantasy of what you're imagining the relationship could have been." This smacked the sobs right out of my mouth. Ex had tried to console me several times using similar logic, but it sounded different - more loving, less convenient - in my father's voice. Ex had not treated me very well for the last year or so of our relationship. He hadn't beaten me, yelled at me, cheated on me, or done anything vicious. Instead, he had simply grown indifferent. We still argued, had sex, made each other laugh, and occasionally exchanged loving glances. But the glances became ever-more infrequent until one day I found myself looking lovingly at eyes that merely looked past me.

My father's words helped. So did my friendly Comcast representatives as they delivered unto me my internet and cable. I've also started using Match.com, though more as a distraction than a serious bid to start dating again. I've received my share of "sexessages" - messages from men without profile pictures, messages like "Let me explode in your face!" and, my personal favorite,

I undress you. Lay you down on my bed suck you until you cum.
Wait 15 minutes put a condom on you banging until cum in the condom.
We take a shower, I Rim you and suck you third time you will cum.
Ever Cum three times in one sitting. You love it.
Let me know, I'm horny how about you? Could happen soon up to you.
Later~Mike

It's a bit like poetry, isn't it? I majored in literature in college, and the close-reader in me is contemplating the the capitalized "Cum" in line four. Perhaps it's a gesture towards the mythic power of threes, as in "one, two, three orgasms' a charm." Or perhaps it's meant to signal a connection to "Rimming" with a capital "R" in line three. There's an undeniable rhythm - a certain duosyllabic resonance - to these two words spoken one right after the other. Cumming and Rimming. Rimming and Cumming.

There's no shortage of pornographic poets on Match.com, but I've found some nice men, too - one man in particular. We've exchanged several long e-mails. Like me, he studied literature in college. Like me, he now teaches college himself. He admires the fact that my previous relationship lasted 12 years, but he also seems a bit intimidated by it. He hasn't yet responded to my latest e-mail, so who knows? I was looking forward to hearing from him, if only to swap more stories and "sqawk" (as a friend of mine would say). I'm not ready for a new relationship - he might have deduced as much - but it's nice to be reminded of that spark, that ticklish feeling of excitement triggered by the possibility of new romance, a new future.

Ex's and my "future" ended exactly a month ago. Somehow I must have added an extra day here or there, but the title of this entry notwithstanding, today, January 21, is the one-month anniversary of the end of my fantasy future.

It's ironic that I lambasted Ex on Day 30 for wanting to live in a fairytale. I never had an easy time letting go of fantasy. I remember watching a British adaptation of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe on PBS as a child. I hadn't read the book, but I fell so completely in love with the fantasy of Narnia that I actually broke down in tears when my mom explained I couldn't live in Narnia or experience, first-hand, the adventures of the children who traveled there. It's not that I thought Narnia was real; it's that I wanted so desperately for it to be real. How could anyone be content to live in the "real world" after they'd experienced something as epic and glorious as Narnia? "Reality" as I'd experienced it as a gay child was isolated and boring at best, cruel and degrading at worst.

Later, as a teenager, I became a compulsive liar. I invented an elaborate second life. By day, I was a mild-mannered teenager, a virgin, with a scant number of friends and even scanter amount of self-esteem. By night, however, I was a bad-ass, underground poet. I read my poetry at a club in New York's Alphabet City. (Never mind that I had no idea what or where "Alphabet City" was. A friend had cornered me into naming the location of the club. I pleaded ignorance - I've always had a terrible sense of direction, and my few friends at the time had witnessed this as I drove us through town, from one familiar location to another, never failing to make at least two wrong turns. So my friend proceeded to name every New York City neighborhood she could think of. She described Alphabet City as the most dangerous - a neighborhood clad in shadows. Logically, I chose Alphabet City as the shadowy center of my imaginary nightlife.)

One morning when I was truly lost in my own darkness and needed someone to guide me back, I killed off my fantasy lover. I called one of my friends in tears at 4:00 AM, telling him my beautiful, perfect boyfriend had died of a drug overdose. My friend picked me up in his car and sat with me past sunrise, all the while giving me his full attention. So lost was I in high school that I wouldn't have felt loved had he given me any less.

I lied for attention, love, excitement, pity. I lied so my friends would see me as I saw them - talented, beautiful, desirable. I lied so my classmates would see me as more than the fag they'd made fun of. I was an artist, an adventurer, the denizen of a secret world so unfathomable and grown up that it made their own suburban lives seem positively hackneyed and childish. I had invited my own Narnia - the Narnia of a gay teenager with dyed black hair and a poetry fetish, living in the age of grunge.

I was still a liar at age 20 when I met Ex. A mere three years my senior, Ex had already accumulated enough sexual and life experience to make my world-weariest of high-school friends seem quaint. My lies failed to persuade him. I said I'd had a boyfriend and a sex-life, but the only thing I did well in bed was sleep. I said I'd been the star performer at a poetry club in Alphabet City, yet I couldn't recall the address, an intersection, even a subway line. I said I'd had sex with women, yet my descriptions didn't pass muster. (In reality, I did dry-hump my high-school girlfriend once. I kept my eyes shut the entire time, thinking of Brad Pitt). Ultimately it was Ex, and only Ex, to whom I confessed my lies. He was, quite literally, my first true friend - the first person I trusted to love me as I was and award me his full attention regardless of what I wasn't.

From that moment on, I spun my lies in my writing where they belonged. At the same time, Ex began indulging more and more in his own fantasies. He wanted to live in a castle. Every time we saw one in a movie or, less frequently, in person, he said, sweetly but firmly, "I could live there. Buy me that." He wanted a Tony, an Oscar, an Emmy. He wanted to play Thor Lundgren's as-yet-non-existent love interest on Nurse Jackie. The only problem was, he never actually auditioned for anything - except a small dance company. One would have thought he'd given up on a recurring role on Nurse Jackie or a Best Actor nod at the Academy Awards. But Ex kept fantasizing - about fame and his castle. I'm all for the occasional pipe-dream - I'd love to be a famous playwright someday - but Ex fed the pipe without executing any of the follow-through. And I was expected to endorse his dreams, to treat them as foregone conclusions. I supported him, I encouraged him to audition, I even wrote a play for him in which to star. But he still hasn't gone out for any acting auditions, and he still hasn't read the play. And my month-old, single self is no longer responsible for nourishing anyone's dreams except my own.

I wonder if "horny Mike" - the Match.com poet - truly believes men will answer his call for a night of "Rimming and Cumming." Perhaps some men have, though I doubt the number is large. Assuming he's not completely unhinged, Mike's fantasy is likely a product of loneliness. That, of course, and a hard-on.

I spoke to a friend today - one of Ex's and my few mutual friends who knew us for almost as long as our relationship - and she said that while I was processing the breakup with my head, Ex was processing it with his penis. I'm not sure if she means he's fucking his way to clarity or simply following his penis to rosier pastures. Either way, she thinks he's avoiding something, and she's probably right. Maybe he's dancing as fast as he can to forestall the death of his own fantasies?

Meanwhile, as I lay my imaginary relationship to rest, I am doing my best to confront the death of mine.