The apartment smells like dust and lemons, my shoes leave footprints on the floorboards. The walls are stark and white and each room is glaringly empty, a mockery of everything we tried to fill them with.

Somewhere embedded in these halls, these rooms and these too-white walls are the memories of the people who used to inhabit them, of dramas played out in these rooms, in front of these silent walls.

You said they’d keep our secret, you said these walls would never tell but it seems to me that our shame, our fury echoes, floods the apartment, a shout, a whisper, a tear still shining on the floor.

I broke in but so what? Just one more crime to add to my record and they’ll never catch me because I’m Lance Bass and I’m a celebrity and they can’t do, wouldn’t want to do anything to me.

Broke into the old apartment
This is where we used to live
Broken glass, broke and hungry
Broken hearts and broken bones

It seems so strangely new, this apartment, even though it is apparent that no one has lived here for a long time.

As if the story took place in another place, another time- as if the story is someone else’s, anyone’s but mine.

The peeling and fading wallpaper is gone and in it’s place staring blank whiteness, a haunting sort of austerity. The floorboards are clean and the bloodstains on the carpet have vanished. I can see you now in my mind, on your knees, scrubbing viciously at the stains of our secret life, tears dripping down your pale powdery cheeks- one more bruise in our paradise.

And the door. You replaced the door. When you replaced me.

This is where we used to live
Why did you paint the walls?
Why did you clean the floor?
Why did you plaster over the hole I punched in the door?

Things I can still remember- the little things of mine that I left when I ran that last time- I wonder where they are. You must have taken them when you yourself moved out, and maybe you keep them in a shoebox under your bed- because that’s the kind of thing you’d do- or maybe you burnt them or maybe you’ve forgotten they were once mine.

In my head I can still hear the thunder crashing, see the lights flickering in and out of existence, the bruises shining blackly on your pale skin.

Lance, stop it, please, you don’t know what you’re doing…

The blood looked like lipstick, lit up by lightning, smearing your lips, your face.

Lance, please… stop, please stop, you’re hurting me…

I couldn’t stop.

This is where we used to live
Why did you keep the mousetrap?
Why did you keep the dish rack?
Those things were mine
I guess they still are, and I want them back

I saw you yesterday- a brief glance across the room and your eyes met mine, violent and cloudy and art-filled, and I thought of this place.

Of the stairs leading up to our flaking door- 42, you counted once, in a moment of boredom and freedom and joy. The crooked landing where you shoved me against the wall, your breath hot on my face and reeking of alcohol and smoke, your laughter ringing in my ear as your lips covered mine and my protests.

Live dangerously, you mumbled into my ear, one hand wreathed into my hair, the other pressed against the wall beside me. Who cares if people see?

And I wanted them to see as much as you did.

I thought of the landlord who always told us to be quiet, who charged too much for the rent and could never remember our names. When we were gone on tour he’d go through our apartment and take things but we never minded because we always hid the really valuable things.

I thought of you leaning wild eyed out of the window, watching the alley below us, your skin glowing in the street light. It’s gorgeous, you whispered, awe-stricken by- by what? By the moon, the city, the people? Or by everything all at once?

I thought of you lying on the bed, the bruises coloring your body with purples and blues and blacks, a collage of pain tattooed on your heart.

Broke into the old apartment
Forty-two stairs from the street
Crooked landing, crooked landlord
Narrow laneway filled with crooks

It seems as if they did this on purpose, they ruined everything that was ours- new stairs, for instance, and they paved the lawn.

The locks were changed and I had to break in to my own fucking apartment, our apartment, as if I were breaking into our past.

I only wanted to see. To remember. I wanted some sort of conclusion, absolution- not just a memory of a stormy night and too many punches thrown and the look on your face as I fled the apartment, the coke still in lines on the mirror, your blood still on my knuckles.

We’ll stop this tomorrow, you would promise every night, laying your head on my chest. Tomorrow we’ll stop the addictions, the lies. Tomorrow.

Now became then, and all too soon we didn’t have any tomorrows left.

This is where we used to live
Why did they pave the lawn?
Why did they change the locks?
Why did I have to break it, I only came here to talk

And the neighbor downstairs, with her voice like vodka and tomatoes, singing in screeching tones, screaming at us every time we were too loud.

How we used to turn up your TV and jump and down just to see how long it took before we heard the familiar clump clump clump of her cane.

So many stories to tell, so many good things in the bad, why did we have to lose it all? Why did we have to let go of everything, why couldn’t we have at least kept our smiles, our laughter?

Justin tells me you never laugh anymore. He tells me what you do to yourself, tells me of the razors.

He looks at me like it’s all my fault when he tells me this.

This is where we used to live
How is the neighbor downstairs?
How is her temper this year?
I turned up your TV and stomped on the floor just for fun

I’m happy with her, of course, in our house out by the coast. If I wasn’t, why would I be with her? Granted, she’s shy. Sweet. Subservient. Everything you weren’t, everything I never wanted you to be.

At night she curls around me and tells me she loves me and doesn’t seem to mind that I don’t tell her the same. Sometimes I can’t even look at her because her hair is blonde and her eyes are green like mine and her voice is high and soft and warm like coffee with sugar.

No, she’s not like you at all, and I can’t tell if that’s why I stay with her or that’s why I want to leave her.

I know we don’t live here anymore
We bought an old house on the Danforth
She loves me and her body keeps me warm
I’m happy there
But this is where we used to live

The bedroom, even without the bed, still reeks of sunlight and sex and smoke and drugs, and it seems a million scenes are flashing through my mind, like a movie screen divided into panels and boxes so every moment occurs simultaneously.

The coke, the kisses, the smoke hissing from your mouth, the bruises painting your body, the screaming, the feel of your lips against my skin, your fingers wrapped in my hair, your voice like gravel murmuring in my ear, the empty bottles being flung against the wall.

Mumbled past your lips, I never loved anyone like I love you.

Brushing your brown hair off your forehead, wiping a tear from your cheek, gripping your skinny arms so hard that when I let go red spidery marks etched handprints.

Lance! stop it! stop it now!

The wail of sirens.

Oh god. Oh god. I’m so sorry, I’m sorry. Jesus, JC, I’m sorry.

And running.

I remember the running.

Broke into the old apartment
Tore the phone out of the wall
Only memories, fading memories
Blending into a dull tableaux
I want them back

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