It happens as I’m quietly contemplating suicide in the Uffizi Gallery. I’m certain I’m not the only one. It’s hot and stuffy and everyone’s skin is pushing and pulsing against everyone else’s skin in an effort to glimpse Bacchus. We are like cattle, except cattle would never put themselves through this voluntarily. Someone’s baby cries and the sound assaults the white marble ceiling. Infanticide is a word that joins my stream of consciousness.
I have a migraine, if you can believe it. I tie my hair back into a bun to feel the air on my neck and now the pulsing in my forehead is moving backwards and I can’t even see the fucking painting. I close my eyes and dream of my car, of air conditioning, of a hotel room with salmon sheets and a bottle of scotch fermenting beneath the bed. I lick my lips and coat the roof of my mouth with salt and it’s when I’m mapping my way out of the throb of sweaty patrons that someone turns their head and, before I’m ready, Bacchus is offering me a glass of wine.
I can’t move. I’m rendered still, blinking like a fawn, trying to figure out why Bacchus looks exactly like you.
At first I think it’s just his body— the boyish fat of his stomach, uncanny compared to his toned, shapely arms — but there’s a piece of you in his eyes, too. Is it arrogance? Does it count as arrogance if it’s justified? I want to believe in the lazy tranquility of his half-lidded gaze. I let them tell me that everything is okay. I swim in the belly of his wine glass.
The baby screams again and I’m pulled from the vision as if from the ocean— gasping for breath.
Outside, the heat is no better. It is Florence in the summertime and these places swell with tourists the way blisters do, and as they move in a blur around me all I can think is that it is so fucking you to make this trip about yourself. I blink and my eyelids are still seared with Bacchus and I know that I can hide in Italy as long as I’d like but your being will still permeate my every step, rising from the earth like well water.
When I get back to the hotel I book a flight home. I don’t know if it’s to kill you or to feel the heat of your body fill mine. I think I’ll only know when my fingers sink into the rolls of your neck.
