a bad pain perdu and a decade

i last seen Laurent at a French bistro in Saigon. i ordered a cocktail, he wanted to try the pain perdu.

the forty-five minutes conversation was much about things and people that run in parallels:
big corporations,
his mother,
Parisienne at their finest,
someone else's man has became a CEO,
previously how i walked out on the same man a long time ago,
Africa,
the Saigonese in me,
death, doubts;
and skepticism.

Laurent took a portrait of me.
the pain perdu was a bad idea, so he's frowned, paused, and took a sip from his beer bottle, then calmly said to me:

"Bailey, i have known you for a decade, each and every year you offer to the world a very different version of yourself- kaleidoscopic, same as the freckles on your face."

i went back to the hotel, got drunk with the staff and flew into another city the next evening.

things and people that run in parallels:
my father and his alcoholism: my self-proclaimed genetic condition,
nobody has ever told me my destructions were fatal until it's too late,
the letters that never got sent,
years in utter solitary with a writer's block that felt like an eternity,
running away from the people that love me,
and get a lifetime constant reminder that i have ran away from them,
touch me and you'll never be alone,
my name bitterly stuttered on someone's lips,
the decade-long relationships that has left every person bruised for life.