introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the night before the dawn of your departure -in the moonlight - second of july, 2001-night skies are like fine crystal "just because you feel hollow inside its real."~mazzy star i need this. i need this now. i don't know what i expected to be like. i don't know if i thought that numbness to your leaving was going to last through til the last moment. i certainly didn't expect the tears when they finally came, too early...i didn't mean for you to see. as we waltzed our careful dance through the walmart, i didn't make one comment about how i hated shopping there. i picked up the snuggle fabric softener sheets. we joked like we always did. we joked, yet the air held the impending parting. we were so careful. and we walked the aisles like we did the other night, only this time, you had a purpose: to find the padlock for the truck; to find some sunglasses; to look at those roller blades. we walked the aisles and i glanced at things i've seen a million times. i didn't want for anything. i had my box of snuggle dryer sheets that smell like him and i had you beside me in the flourescent light that gives me headaches (and i already had a bitch of a headache today as it is) and i was on the edge of content except that i knew what was coming. i knew that there were a lot of last things coming in the next few minutes that i hadn't given myself time to get used to. i hadn't come prepared. lately, what else is new? and you picked out your sunglasses and your heavy duty padlock that seemed to sneak up on us. so much seemed to sneak up on us these past few weeks. there was so much fog for me...but the fog is lifting today. i think that sometimes, horoscopes are uncanny. you picked out your brown lensed glasses and i stood there in a distant emotional plane, trying to make sense of the closing spot of emptiness inside me. you picked your brown oval-lensed sunglasses from an entire board of brown lensed sunglasses and they were a perfect fit on the face that i don't take enough time to remember. even after all of these years, your face strikes me as unfamiliar sometimes. i notice things about it every time. tonight, it was the shape of your nose and the way that you eminate a lovely shade of burnt sienna or is it umber? auburn? whichever. you picked the glasses and we headed for the only aisle that sold cigarettes. "i have to pick up some smokes." you were the first person that i've heard in a long time refer to cigarettes as "smokes". you were probably the first person i ever heard call them that years ago. and i don't blame you for getting me started, you know. it was my choice. you have always done things before me, it feels like. you have always gone ahead and i've always learned to catch up. and so it will go. i will catch up. i will grow up. i will be responsible and scared just like you. i promise you i'll be alright. so we got in the car and i think it started setting in and i wanted a cigarette but i hadn't brought mine and i didn't want to take one of yours because you're gonna need them. its a long five day drive ahead of you. and we drove down along the roads that crack and buckle in the winter; the roads that are pocked with pot holes; the roads that my father never stops making fun of. he forgets its the strange winters here. the dark winters here. the winters that heave and split the pavement in spring with the thawing and freezing and thawing. the winters are dark here. we drove down Freedom Road. its a road that we've driven on a hundred times, you and i, both alone and together. we road past the mini mart and i felt the weight of the vast clear sky on me and the moonlight was almost too surreal. nothing felt genuine except the emptiness that was starting to unpack itself and settle in in that place in my heart where you've always resided. and its not that you're moving out of my heart because you and i both know that thats just not possible. you paid the mortgage in years of loyalty and friendship and laugher. you are one of my four closest friends. you were in the car with us when we went to the giant eagle. "the four closest people in the world to me are in this car," i said as i considered the immensity of the moment. i liked it. it will be a long time before that happens again. there will always be an empty spot at every occasion for you, should you choose to come and fill it. always. and i wrote you a poem before you left for england that time that you left me before; that time that i wasn't sure i could do it on my own. i wrote you a poem and i hardly remember what it said and i'm sort of glad for that because this time its different. this time, i *know* i can do it on my own. this time, i know that i'm strong enough if i need to be. this time, i know that i'm going to be okay. so as we turned at the light onto Powell Road, i didn't expect the tears that came. they weren't the sobbing sort of things that shake me for hours. they were the kind that spill out and make it so you can barely breathe. the kind that hurt to cry. and i knew that this was the last time we'd ever drive around that corner in that truck on a moonlit night. you're selling the truck. you're leaving it behind and driving out in a uhaul. and the moon. it will light up on its rhythm of cycles but it won't be the same. not without you. and by the time we hit valerie drive, i was breathless with the rawness of emotion and the purity of the moment. it was you and me and you were so close and it was like you were in another world but right there. i could touch you and hug you and talk to you but by this time tomorrow, you'd be in a different state. you'd be on your way to sunset. to ocean. to a different coast. a different culture. a different world. and when we pulled into my driveway, everything glowed ghostly in the remaining faint purple and i cried and told you how hard it was for me but how i wasn't scared for me...how i was scared for you. i told you that i was going to miss you. i cried. i sobbed a little. i hugged you. i didn't want to let go. but i did. and now. you're gone. you leave at sunrise, practically. and i'll set my alarm. and i'll wake up. and i'll know that you probably overslept. but i'll know that by the time that i really have to get up and get ready for work, you'll be long gone. and i'll ache for you already. and i'll miss you. and i'll wonder about you. and i'll check hte mail for a post card from texas every day until i hear from you. and i'll wait. and i'll remember. because, as with all of my friends, i don't forget. with you, its an unwanted and expected familiarity that i've always knew would come: you'd leave. you'd have to. you are strong. you are amazingly strong and independant and wonderful. and i'm proud of you. you'll be in my thoughts, my darling old friend. you'll always be in my thoughts. -for brian on the night before his dawn departure- today was so strange and i couldn't help but remember the time when we were driving together. we always drove together. well. you always drove. but i was riding with you. and we were going somewhere. i hardly remember where. you and me in the olds. the old grey olds. and we hadn't even graduated yet. and we had just been accepted to colleges. college. we were going to the same one. i didn't plan it like that, you know. but it sure did work out, didn't it? but today i couldnt' help remembering when i first knew that you'd go and the first time my heart sank at the thought of being so far away. and it was that day that i realized how much you meant to me. how much you knew about me. how much things were going to change in the coming years. it was what you said when i, in my clinging sort of way that wants to keep everything unchanging and comfortable the same and secure, asked you about how things were going to be. and i didn't think i was the sorority girl type and i wondered what you thought about the frats and did you think you'd pledge? and would things be the same? and would you still talk to me? and you said that you didn't know but that you'd take things as they came. and you'll always be the same... planning what you can and dealing with what comes along and i will always be a bit behind but thats just me, that just how i am. and i remembered today how we layed on the wool blanket on the side of the grove on teh side of the hill that was ours for weeknights in a row and i loved your feet they were so beautiful to me and we would sip our unimart cuppocino and talk for hours til it was late because we were on our own then and it was okay and we could. we'd have stayed up forever if you weren't so responsible. you are always so responsible. and thats you. always a good head on your shoulders and always thinking of what needs to be done and what is right and real and smart and then there's me, who knows better than to worry so much because i know you'll be just fine. i know you'll always be okay. and so will i. i know that now. i'm just a little lagged, just a little less put together yet.... just a little more afraid to grow up just yet. and you, you're so beautiful in your adulthood with your wings and your soaring heights and i love to watch you succeed. i love to watch you grow. i love to learn to fly on my own but i hate doing it without you but at the same time, i've got the greatest example of that person that i rode next to in the car and layed with on that blanket in the starlight who is so completely wonderful and brave and strong and bright to learn from. and i'll always have something to learn from you. and i love that about you. today, i remembered the strangest things that made me glad and reminded me that i always knew and that i've always been ready for this. today i remembered and watched you drive away and realized that we're entering a different season and our friendship is strong in its forever summertime and this winter of parting was always coming but there will always come a thaw. and we will always find each other again. and make more memories for me to remember on strange days like today. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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