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 is 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.