That's the question that still lingers, the one I ask myself every now and then when the city gets too quiet. It was Chicago, 2009, a city alive with chaos, grit, and the hum of something unspoken.
It was the kind of place where you could lose yourself and find someone all in the same night.
That's where I met her. I don't even know if I ever truly knew her name or if "I" was all she ever wanted to give me. It fit her, though, simple, sharp, and impossible to hold onto.
She was magnetic in a way that didn't make sense at first. It wasn't her looks, though she had a face you couldn't help but remember—a little too beautiful, a little too sad.
It was her presence, the way she moved through the world like she knew it owed her something, but she wasn't in a hurry to collect. I met her in a bar that smelled like spilled beer and bad decisions, where the jukebox still played tracks from a decade that wasn't this one.
She stood at the pool table, chalking her cue like it was the only thing in the world that mattered, and when I asked her name, she just said, "I."
That's all she gave me. I waited for her to explain, to fill in the silence with something more, but she just smirked, like she knew the joke, and I was still waiting for the punchline. That's who she was, always giving just enough to make you stay but never enough to make you whole.
We spent weeks, maybe months, tangled up in late-night conversations and the kind of moments you think will last forever when you’re young enough to believe they might. Chicago became our playground. We'd wander the streets late at night, her a step behind me as I skated through the empty intersections. She never rode, but somehow, she was always the one leading.
She had a way of turning the ordinary into something electric. When she was there, a dive bar felt like a secret hideout; a cracked leather couch became a throne. She loved bookstores—those tiny, hidden ones that smelled like old paper and dust.
I remember the time she handed me a mindful poetic piece of Howl by Ginsberg and said, “This is how you'll remember me.” I told her I wouldn't forget her, but she smirked again with that same look. "You will," she said, and it didn't sound like a challenge—it sounded like a promise.
But there was a darkness to her, too; I didn't fully understand until it was too late. She had an addiction, though she never called it that. She called it a habit, a release, a way to quiet the noise.
At first, it felt like just another layer of her mystery, adding to her edge. But it wasn't long before I saw how it dulled her and took pieces of her away. She stopped showing up, disappeared for days at a time, and came back with apologies that felt rehearsed. "It's nothing," she'd say, brushing it off like I was overthinking. "You're too serious about everything."
I wanted to believe her, to believe that it wasn't as bad as it seemed, but the truth has a way of slipping through the cracks. As the late nights got later, the silences between us grew heavier, and she started to fade, piece by piece, until I was left holding on to someone who wasn't really there anymore. I remember one night in particular—it was cold, the kind of Chicago winter that bites through every layer of clothing.
She stood at my loft window, tracing patterns in the fogged glass with her fingers. "You don't love me," she said, her voice soft and almost resigned. You love the idea of me."
I didn't know what to say. Maybe she was right, or maybe I loved her in the only way I knew how. But it didn't matter. She was slipping away, and no amount of love would stop it. The last time I saw her, she looked smaller somehow, like the weight of it all had finally worn her down.
She kissed me goodbye in that same bar where we first met, and I knew it wasn't just goodbye for the night. She disappeared after that, leaving only fragments of herself behind—her laugh, her smirk, the way she could make you feel like the most critical person in the world and a stranger all at once.
I still think about her sometimes. Not often, but enough.
What's her name?
I ask myself, though I know the answer doesn't matter. She was I, and maybe that's all she was ever meant to be—someone who came into my life like a storm, left just as quickly, and reminded me how fragile it was. Chicago feels different now, quieter somehow, but now and then, when the city hums just right, I think I can feel her out of reach...
Maybe I loved her. Perhaps I didn't. Possibly, she never gave me a chance.
- JSPC ] The Artists of Wanton [
