My former partner and I stopped sleeping in the same bed decades ago and eventually the same room, and finally to floors below each other. Just what turned me out like a pandering witch from the master bedroom is uncertain. As I recall, it was due to the fact that I was heavier and his night time ritual felt like those hapless supernumeraries holding on to any edge on the Titanic as the transatlantic behemoth lifted out of the water after it broke in half and plunged headlong into the icy depths.

Further, he added, that he often felt that as though he kept log rolling throughout the night and onto my Shrek-like form. When you think about it, there are worse things than falling into the doughy, green puffs of an ogre! Another reason was our sleep schedules: I went to sleep earlier and rose earlier; he went to bed later and rose later. And finally, it was simply because we kept each other awake whether it snoring, tossing or turning.

But what was it really? Was it really a distress signal like that telegraph on the bridge of the Titanic? Or did we find that the bedroom was not a place where we were compatible? Whatever the reason I’m sure it shook the foundation of our already quaking relationship.

According to the September 2017 issue of GQ Magazine, Jeff Vrabel writes, “In fact, one study says that 40 percent of adult couples have already sleep-divorced.”

Gee Jeff, which study is that? Obviously, it’s a study that panders to a particular population that is sleep-divorced. Oh, and just because 40 percent is, it also means that 60 percent isn’t!

Well, Abram and I aren’t. We drift slowly and quietly asleep like the snow that swirls around pines in the vast wilderness of British Columbia. When we toss and turn we’re like boats moored to docks. And when we snore we’re like two men that love loving the other.

I’m wholly disinterested in disengaging myself from Abram’s arms for any reason. And especially when night bathes our eyes in the twilight.

I was talking to Artem this afternoon between kisses and asked him, “when do you think we’ll understand the typography of each others’ body?”

He replied, “why, is that when you’ll tire of me?”

“Tire of you,” I asked, “tire of you?”

Why does familiarity breed contempt? Why should my feeling comfortable with touching Artem’s torso, his shoulders, his hips, or buttocks sans the need to rip open all his clothes, mark the end of one phase and the beginning of another? Of course we’re still steering our respective galleons toward physical exploration and the discovery of rapture. But anchoring off the coast of each other doesn’t mean we’re like hurricanes which lose their fury once making landfall.

What Artem hadn’t realised was that he wasn’t part of a group photograph. No, Artem was a candid, caught in my lens without knowledge; a selfless selfie; his image kidnapped and placed between four black corners on an even blacker piece of construction paper.

Artem is not and will not be in the background.

Artem will always be in my foreground.

How do we know when we’ve fallen in love? What are the signs that we’ve abandoned ourselves to a greater cause? Is it a yearning or a hunger or a thirst? Is it applied like decoupage, or is it organic, building from within like Old Faithful, then erupting sending steam and the fragments of our carefully constructed lives upward and into the stratosphere. Just when do we listen to our corner man and decide to turn ourselves over to their instruction rather than muddle through another round of rockem’ sockem’ punches?

It’s been a very long time since I’ve been in love. Some say that the “in” of in love slowly cools like lava that rolls relentlessly forward to the edge of the sea and drops into the water turning to a black crystalline rock.

“What,” I asked, “do you mean? Do you mean that we lose the music of love and replace it by a nervous tap tap tap of bored fingers on a tabletop?” And what an annihilistic attitude to adopt! No wonder there’s always the ball and chain joke, but the groom to whom the joke is lobbed rarely laughs. Why on earth does falling in love have to become pedantic?

When I fall in love next I want it to be a cashmere blanket that someone tosses over my napping form; I want a thousand kisses as though I’d just walked into a butterfly exhibit; I want the clutching hands, the wandering tongues, and the hungry mouths of craving. I want strong hands to hold my strong hands. I want broad shoulders which will become my pillows. I look forward to clutching fabric while I cry.

And while I welcome the seasons of life to change, I refuse to accept that my lovers will become pedestrian. I’ve never been one to walk into love. Instead, I run in as though I were charging the waves on an ocean.

What makes someone kissable?

Yearning and longing. And hunger.

When I study the photographs of Artem I see his pouty lower lip which is ripe like a saporous tomato; it’s a springboard of affection. What makes Artem kissable? I make him kissable. Just like we assign beauty to others, we also assign kissability.

When I look in a mirror I don’t see someone kissable. But when I look at Artem, all I see is kissable. I see his sparkling, dreamy eyes; the beard which lays on his cheeks, chin, and throat like carpet; the symetrical nose. But more, I spy desire. But he’s not being desirous. I desire him. I want to consume him. I crave him. I’ve been starving for years and he might be plain or he might be stunning; he might be languid or he might be lively; he might be distracted or he might be focused. But it’s not how he’s being at all. It’s about how I’m feeling and projecting it upon him. And our cravings are no passing lanes on a country highway littered with sharp curves, deep valleys, and higher hills. There’s nothing sexier than men being men and letting men litter each other with devotion.

I think that one of the most valuable lessons lovers can learn is to ignore what we think and focus instead on what we see, trusting in the kissability of the other and our willingness to be devoured hungrily.

Over the course of my lifetime I’ve learned a thing or two about loving men.

If you’re a gay man or a woman that’s attracted to men you know precisely how intoxicating they (we) can be. But it wasn’t until the unfortunate end of my relationship did I fully comprehend to what an extensive degree I love loving men.

I love everything about men. Everything. Their kindness and their silliness, their arrogance and their humility, their tenderness and their rough-housing. I love their smiles, their laughter, their belly’s, their shoulders. I love their deep eyes and their crooked mischievous grins. I love their devote sexual, political, and religious views. I love their unwavering commitment to their husbands, their wives, their lovers, their boyfriends, their girlfriends, their children, and their pets. I love their softness. I like their hardness. I love everything about men including being a man. And I love everyone that loves loving men.

Loving men isn’t easy. Ask any gay man or woman. But loving men has rewards beyond the imagination. For me, this goes well beyond the sexuality and delves deep into the sensuality and intimacy. Of course sex with men is hot, but hot lasts only as long as someone is stoking the fire. What happens before the brush fire is struck by the tortuous lightening of longing? And what happens after? I think that sensuality precedes sexuality and intimacy outlasts it. I especially love loving men when their desire has cooled and what remains are the warm, calm embers of strong hands entwined around the others’s like a fleshy creeping ivy. The dampness of eyebrows which now produce the small dots of gooseflesh which erupt on the naked torsos which peek from beneath the coiled sheets. I love the whispers which quietly replace the gnawing and growling of congenital passion.

Last evening I watched the final scenes of “Brokeback Mountain” where Ennis (Heath Ledger) visits Jack’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) boyhood home. Ennis discovers a couple of shirts belonging to Jack tucked in a nook. Those shirts were the shirts that Jack wore when he was with Ennis on Brokeback Mountain. Ennis clutches that pair of shirts and inhales deeply Jack’s scent and you can just feel Ennis’s anguish.

That’s what it’s like loving men.