early retirement                                           2.11.22 Mercury/Pluto conjunction

I’ve been cracking jokes lately,
when in the company of others.
When there was an opening in the conversation
I would insert a comment;
I would joke about my life in early retirement.
I would joke and say that I am retired.
It's obviously funny because I’m only 35;
fairly early in my second Saturn returns.

Over the last 18 months I’ve made modest acquisitions
fit for a retiree;
house slippers, a few extra lines in my face and
even a piccolo pipe with dark cherry Cavendish tobacco.  
They all fit rather nicely,
(according to my eyes)
when worn with my gray cardigan with the red whip stitch
suring up the right pocket;
the same cardigan I wore the night of the accident and the
morning of the ward.
That was an equinox to remember.

Maybe it's in poor taste to joke about early retirement.
Perhaps that it isn’t very funny to go on about,
or maybe it was only funny to me.
It hadn’t quite occurred to me until now that
it may be kind of awkward for a grown man to crack
funnies about his lack of income or industriousness.
I suppose I just gave myself a pass.
Because I figured everyone already knows I’m
a little unhinged-
a little ungrounded-
certainly a bit touched…
and that “he just needs time to heal because he is
an activated Light Worker and the benefits reaped
by his inner struggle to anchor the
Light upon the Earth plane is in everyone’s best interest,
and that it takes an untold exertion of Will to exact such an incarnation,
and that it takes more than a few several months for the
risen Kundalini to come to maturation.
Quick, can someone please get me a tourmaline.

Well, here I am in
southern Jersey
Manchester Township
Ocean County
Riverside retirement community
side of the pond (man made)
composite bench under a gazebo erected on a concrete pad.
Sitting inside my cardigan next to my piccolo pipe and a pen in my hand,
wondering how I could feel so lost and so found at the same time.

I’ve been a stubborn *******.
Afraid to bear my Light within my hands and
expose it to my kin in a meaningful way.
But here I am,
early retirement
on an early afternoon
in a retirement community
full of elders
slinkin through the
early dusk of the
twilight of their lives.
And I don't like it.
I am not equanimous with what is.
I’ve excreted so many toxins that the
re-uptake is nearly too much to bear.
I’ve carried empty green notepads in my back pocket for years.
Pen and pad with scotch tape holding down the binding;
worth about three or four poems max.
“Yea I fancy myself a writer, just not very prolific.”
You can only speak something into being so many times
before the universe starts agreeing with you.
Old man Saturn couldn’t give a **** about
little fears and excuses.
The limits of necessity were only
bad wiring
rendered by
my own hand.
And that goes down smooth like a fish-bone in the throat.

I own enough scarves and robes to
circumambulate the globe a few times.
If only I could fly
it would be in such style
because on the outside I look how I want to feel on the inside.
Before my heart center I hold the dharmachakra mudra and
I stare into a candle flame.
I could of sworn they prescribed this treatment
early in the Rig Veda for guys with ailments like mine;
running mad like beside his shadow and
fleeing all the house flies;
sliding down the side of a waxing crescent moon.

only the moon it is a scythe;
a crescent knife.
Waning in early retirement,
old man Saturn coming for his life.

I am a knock on your door

You open up and I sneak in

Ill put your life on the market

Snarky teenagers to target a holiday demographic before fully developed  concepts begin

Your backpack and notepads house your sins
A man that's tall and gets caught in the calls of women to distract from the purpose  of ink pens

You're too ***** to be great

A ****** is a dead end

And a vortex for survivals' fate

Explorations of vanities' intellectual alternative gate

humans born a mess,
messengers carrying blank notepads, sheet music,
brought from within to the without

a baby-sized handful of historical residues retained,
garnered from all too brief a prelim existence,
arriving possessing hints of what may be

most emerging crying,
crying over loss of the womb security,
for seers all, all see unaccountable futures clouded
by an inevitable chance of rain
and death

all of us, no one excepted,
covered for months in **** stained fluids ,
a holy, ***** combination
of amniotic nourishment,
and our own waste

a hint of what is to come?

human then spends the rest of life
cleaning up after himself,
mostly with tasks of addition,
punctuating by the occasional cleansing of
elimination subtraction

making room for the next love,
labored birthing of a baby poem,
from your womb, midwifed,
haunting ghosts of three note tunes,
begging for a set of lyrics and a
great chorus everybody can sing,
a completion competition

going along, all along, to the goings on,
all our routes preternatural crooked,
lived a life of pretense, a straightened out life,
which is the nuanced, connected summary of our components
which are all curves, dots on a line

and the composition source,
the secret chords employed,
tech installed just prior to birth,
effacing glorious sadness, glorious joy,
the human building blocks,
with the certainty that
everybody knows,
that's how it goes
everybody knows,
only fools believe,
you'll live forever

but live at least long enough to sing and write of
a man cleaning up his own life's messes,
and perchance, after our absence,
leaving the world better for it

I find you in the margins of old school books,
in the cupboard where I keep my old notepads,
in the stories I’ve forgotten I’ve written.
It’s all scraps of myself in rounded letters,
uncanny because it looks like me,
sounds like me,
but it’s you and it is you
but it’s like me too.

I’m opening you (and me) back up and I hate you.
I hate you, but here we are,
in the mirror maze,
all these mes and yous
in the endless tunnel of mirrors,
back to back, side to side,
caught in ourselves at every angle.
We’re all the same: We’re all so different.
None of us are good.

I hate you.

I hate you at every age,

Then reality splays, sprawls flat out in front of me, exams, money, work, decisions, tight nooses that bind me to life. Get your head out of the clouds, girl  *(2012)

at every stage,

Big smiles, A stars, clever girl, the anomaly, dry compliments, sand paper against my skin. Locked in, not a word, just a mind gone grey, a growing mass of dust that swallows the light and only allows for glasses poured half empty* (2014)

at every moment,

I don’t fit in, never have done, never will. I’m always one step ahead or one step behind. I’m never quite there. But no one understands. They say they do but they don’t. I’m different and I don’t like it but I don’t want to change because this is who I am and whatever happens, I have to put up with it (2012)

all your hatred, you happiness, your ignorance and your sadness

The scab peels and leaks. Too soon to heal, too late to undo the fall. Tomorrow, you’ll trip again and your skin will bleed but this time you’ll know where to find the first aid kit. (2013)

You make me sick.

The world was blue today, a metaphorical wish wash of tears and a meagre ocean. Ice cream dripped in depression, picnic blankets snagged on pebbles and the kite committed suicide on the telephone lines. (2013)

I hate the scraps you’ve left behind

I put bits of you in the bin. I put you out for recycling.
I donate you to charity shops and so you live on and I can’t get rid of you.
There’s no way out of this mirror maze,
no way to avoid the mirrors at angles,
no way for me to escape you or for you to escape me.

There are so many of you and I literally want to beat you all to death.
Oh, I hate you. I hate you.
I don’t think I’ve ever hated anything more than I hate you.
I hate the tone of your words,
I hate your stupid sadness.
I hate your happiness.
I hate your hope.
I hate the memories of your laughter.
I hate the memories of your fun.
I hate you for all the things you’ve done and
never had time to feel bad for.
I hate you in the photographs,
in the words, in the schoolbooks,
in the poems that I’ve shared,
I hate, I hate, I hate.

I wish I could smash up this maze of mirrors and you,
but then I’d only be left with myself
and I hate her too.

It comes naturally
to write down my thoughts
Even in the worst situations,
When my mind is in knots

No one to share with
Except the pencil and paper
My notebooks and notepads
Stacked as high as a skyscraper

Writers are the loneliest of people
Or so, I’ve been told
I believe the lonelier one is,
the more pens one holds

Hotel maids.
They worry me.
I hope someone would agree.
They could steal my stuff.
And they give me cheap soap that make my skin rough.
I like to use the little notepads to write them creepy notes.
I wish they would clean the blankets because they sometimes smell like goats.
It ****** me off when they knock on your door.
***** its 7 in the morning.

Market square died down this afternoon,
the day of trading over and over all too soon;
and the now the trolleys have been left out,
lights left on waiting for those customers to come again.

They'll hurry into their jumpers the traders and customers of tomorrow,
weather'll kick up and run up the coast in a rainy fuss.

Temporary clad walls that are there all year round
are dressed up from the ground every day, tied at the ear
of the frames that hang over corridor of cobbles,
scuffed with the muck from Armani plimsolls
and the heels of this week's Alexander McQueens.

*When the rain comes trading will cease and
they'll flick out their notepads to calculate this month's lease.

Free unrestricted journal publications
Words are bombs, dropping ink and paper
Typeface whistle blower and in your face
Chasing stories and truth, free the gonzo
The revolution in print, internet, television
Notepads, computers, and wi-fi
Liberated publication for all open eyes
A world of free thinkers and literary fact
No comment from the silent advertisers
Their payment in truth concealing lies
The United Censoring Of America
The political principles of censorship
Glory or death, guts and congratulations
No justice, no peace, no surrender
We’ve got the voice louder than power
The accuracy of enigmatic liberty

it's time
time to load my most personal  things
taking only the most important

escape this apocalypse
you'll see me on the side
of the road
my cardboard box full of notepads

a lifetime of heart things
feelings tear stained yellow
page after page
pulling a Radio Flyer

on I-10
three  cats and an old faithful
black labrador dame
and one box

She sat and watched the translucent orange leaf fall
and with it every aspiration of her ego
She noted the way the dull morning sun shone through it
  
Ego and leaf alike

Her house is a happy one
Sisters smile
baking cakes when autumn appears
Brothers smile
when furtive grass rises in the spring
Her life is a happy one

She sat and watched the fire burn
cutting her own hair
and whistling

Her song was happy too, as the dwindling dream faded and the afternoon moon shied away
fears once ever present now vapour on crisp dewy winter evening breezes


He sat and watched her trace faces in the air
with a delicate finger
And he drew her face in his mind with ease

His self collapsing

His house is a happy one
Father smile
playing raucous games in the summer epoch
Mother smile
huddled with baby on winter snapshot days
His life is a happy one

His words were happy too, as he scribbled on ragged notepads whilst the wind blew
and so many newspapers broke free from the vendor by the statue


(Though they can't shake that one impression
of the world dematerialising before them
and the prolonging of time
in the interim ghost world
of lost memories
and sadness
on DMT)


I saw them rise on a January morning, lights cascading over treetops
Flittering life and love combined in sun-drenched washed out skies
watching them floating so high
and their smiles were new stars
a transcendent tenderness
that I was in awe of
and still am

Repressed sadness manipulated into shapes
when they made love in the sky
Every bleak memory of their time dissipated
and the cityscape below began to bloom
All industry halted, a million stood and watched
as new life radiated around them

Convoluted linear time was now disrupted
All events in history, happened simultaneously
The birth and death of a cosmos
Captured in a kiss

Sometimes I'll read great literature and think:
that perhaps, poetry is a theatrical
(but necessary) byproduct
of our excess emotion—
created by broken people
who simply feel too much,
in too little of a space.
From the largest and grandest of stanzas
to the petite one-liners,
we pour our feelings into words
and our words into emotion,
and give them the context
to take on a brand new meaning.
We  adorn our anguish in sweet, silken lines,
our passion in soft, breathy rhymes;
our anger shows in scribbles
and taut similes,
our joy in the personification
of the very things we wish
could come alive.
From all corners of all nations we grow
knowing, quite profoundly,
that our feelings are meant to mean something:
Poetry is not tissue in our lives
to be used and tossed away;
rather, poems mark the seasons of ourselves
that are to be remembered and enjoyed.
Written on notepads and parchment,
from wide open spaces to
that dingy apartment,
our words lie in wait for us
so that at our lowest point,
our words may help remind us
to be *human

No light pollution
Celestial nakedness
No noise pollution
Woken by crickets not cars
Pencils, notepads, poetry

As I sit back and relax,
The chill night breeze whips slowly around me.
The sun sets on the distant hillside,
Where the shadows begin to slowly fade,
Lingering
Until its’ cold nightly slumber.

I glance further onto the hillside,
Upon a flicker of light in a pit of darkness,
Alone.
I float back in the warm
Bubble induced water,
Look to the sky,
Where dim stars gain composure,
And begin to glow, brighter and brighter.
Constellations gain visibility,
After finally escaping the abuse of the sun’s rays
Which cloud them through the daytime hours.
The wind whispers more,
People in the distance cheer,
For we all drank the day away
As we enjoyed our distance from the robust city.
Replaced textbooks and notepads for beer,
Champagne and tequila.
Focused on nothing,
Allowing our minds to drift away,
Like these empty bottles in this hot tub.
Drifting,
Yet still confined.
Who’s to say that this can’t be our home?

Home…


So far away…

It smells of soco in the air.
She gave up her body to preserve her dignity
But in the end, she lost that too.
There is nothing dominant in dominance.
Only preservation
And perpetuation of a dying era.
Unless dominance is dominance.
In which case, bring your pipes.
Pipes, pipes, pipes, pipes, pipes,
A thousand and three pipes
And not a single one of them on key.
You say it doesn't make much sense,
But frankly “*******.”
No one's got a gun to your temple
Praising the ivory role of the natural order.
That theory died out with hanging paper clips
Clinching yellowed notepads in their skinny fists
Shouting praises to Everclear to the heavens.
Just ask Salinger what it means to be expected
And I'll tell you my opinion on life.

I write you letters on yellow notepads,
tear them out and use the other side,
my ****** cursive slanting the entire page,
adding things in the margins,
drawing hearts in the corners,
ending with our special
"See you then"
instead of a goodbye,
or a sincerely yours,
or an "I love you always."
That line said it all.

I didn't have an address to send them to
because you just moved and stamps cost a lot
for a broke college student who's just trying
to keep in touch.

You told me not to call you.
Not to ask you how you'd been.
So I didn't even bother asking for some place
to write on the outside of my envelopes.
I just kept writing them.

I get why you didn't want to come see me
before you left
because it would just make it harder to say goodbye
all over again,
and I get
why it's hard to talk to me
because you're busy and because you're two hours behind
and because this and because that.
They're just excuses.
You don't really want to talk to me.

And I,
I get that you're halfway across the country.
Don't you think I've memorized the distance by now?
I know exactly how far it is between your dot and mine
on a map.
I get that it's going to be hard and that it's probably not even worth trying,
but what you don't get
that I do
is that it's worth it.

I've kept bullshitting with you since I met you.
I've kept you around this long.

I'm not going to tell you how many times I sat up crying
about something you said to me, or something you didn't say
that I knew you felt
because it will just push you away.
You've known since the beginning
of whatever this is
that you're no good for me.
You're not good enough for me.
That's fair.

But what you don't get,
that I do
is that I don't care.

You're the best thing in my life
because everything that I do is only because of you,
only because of you believing that I can have it
all
if I try hard enough.

You told me I was the strongest person you knew.
That I was tough.
That I was going to be fine.

I am only those things because I have you
in my life
in one way or an even more complicated other.
So you can't just give up on me.
You can't just expect
to tell me you're done
you never started
and leave.
Because that's not okay with me.

I won't buy a plane ticket.
I won't talk to you every chance I get
(more likely every chance you get)
and I won't keep myself behind this line
because I'm saving myself for you.

But you have to stay with me, okay?
You have to at least try
to understand where I'm coming from
and you have to,
you have to
keep believing in me.

Because I'm not the strongest person you know,
you are.
I'm not tough,
you are.
I'm not always going to be fine,
but you are.

So I'll see you then.

I walk through this city blue
Writing books of unwritten verse
From simple, daily, conversations
Jotted down on cheap notepads
A couple walks together, same routine
Adopted from uncounted years, together
A cigarette hangs from cracked, chapped, lips
His cane taps out a rhythm, hobbling along
Sounds overlap, reverberate off cinder block walls
Voices blend into seamless harmony
A lonely man sits alone in his apartment
Surrounded by books stacked on creaking shelves
Waiting on a call, just to hear her voice
Cars come but never go, an endless procession
Ebbing & flowing, tides of gasoline & steel
Filling blank lines with mass produced ink
While I watch a game of chess in the park
Strategies countered by intuition, or luck
Blind to the outside world, they play on
Paint chips off walls as blurred faces walk by
Cracked concrete crumbles by paces & strides
Only to be overrun by sprouting, spiny, weeds
Crushed into pulp by careless, rushing, feet
Beats of a jazz quartet, pouring from an open door
Echoing down empty hallways, finding my ears by chance
I'll keep walking, through this blue city, until I find you once again
I wrote a letter to you, my love, to this day its not been sent

Today I was driving in my car, looking at my notepad
shoved without care
corner of a page bent
spirals grasped for life on the edge of that dive.

I thought that I felt I wanted to write,
but the glass inside my head was empty.
Forcing it full just causes it to break,
and so I wait for it to fill, fill, fill,
overflow and
capsize.

It comes suddenly:

a stroke in the section of the brain that biologists
have yet to identify.

a phone ringing at three thirty-eight in the morning.

a cat leaping from behind the corner, hitching a momentary ride on your calf.

a rush of amniotic fluid from a pregnant woman's crotch as
she stands over smooth tile.

How many pens have come apart in your mouth?
How much
redblueblackgreen ink
have you ingested in these pen-cap chew moments of inspiration,
trying to steer without looking,
shift with only *******,
scribble without seeing,
glances from concerned motorists in adjacent lanes.

How many
slips of napkins
notepads
envelopes
bills
book covers
receipts
skin
have you marked in fits of...

I used to love it when it rained
Inspiration sang to me
Cloudy days were brain movies
Now I hate to see the days when
Nothing's going right 
And everybody on spite
And I turn to ***** sprite
Because its been a tough night
And I would go and smoke
But I never been the one to spark lights
The fight within me has me slain 
These whack decisions have me shamed
Truth be told I feel insane
I swear I stay outside the box 
But my emotions have me framed 
The games the same 
My people changed 
The ones I trusted most are now the ones that I push away
But, I really wanted you to stay 
I wish you'd come back just to say
That "I'm sorry man I've been so stupid"
And id accept you cuz I'm going through it
Say your opinions have changed
And our friendship is saved
Cuz I can't live another day
In these heartbreak chains 
That I wear here today 
Cuz these poems I make
No longer heal the pain now
And I don't think they ever did
It was just a way out
A way to go and vent
And a way to bring my doubts, and regrets
And upsets
And my frets
And the pains within my chest
On to paper to suppress 
All the reasons I'm depressed
And I would hide them in those sheets of paper 
Until I wrote what happened next
But I'm running out of notepads
And depressions turned to stress
My broken heart is now a crest
That I wear not so proudly 
It's like a scarlet letter
That won't move without me
Removal is impossible
The more that I embrace it
The more my tears turn to rocket fuel

Ameliorate me
Ambience of high nod
No fortuitous meanings
Landslides of alien snod,

Furtive ways
Are all to many
I seeketh a day
A fullness
Of plenty

Futile romantics
In frugal pinch
Judicious tis they are
Worldly *****!!!

Juxtapose notepads
Yet different touchstones
Tentative beasts
Prowl no homes

Terse one shalt be
With all affection
Guns given as presents
Slave turned more peasant

Tirades of clownery
Winery's fail
Hidden like documents
Heart impaled

Corroborate manifest
Wilt shine its light
They've lost their path
All in fright

Arbiter's come bountifully
Devils dance
They've forgotten the ways
Of sweet romance

Inherent to pleasures
Instead of others
Lost all kinship
Sister and brother

Paradoxed discourse
Spoken on route
They forgot the lonely beggar
Prodical sons in doubt

Polemic they'll be
In times unfortune
Burning with lust
Lost to distortion

Forbear thou shalt do
Wherein thy ruins won't topple
Genres of permeating growth
Diseased muffles!!

-
I came across to grown men who were fighting in the street
I asked them tell me why this fact is so
What has caused this incident of words and fists to meet
They both looked up and said, “I don’t quite know”

“Then why on earth would two men fight like children in the yard,
out here in the road for all to see
Finding a solution to this problem can’t be hard,
maybe you should both try poetry”

“He said he didn’t like me and I thought he was my friend”
The other said, “He did the same to me”
“That proves he is a liar for those words I did not send”
“The liars' standing right there don’t you see?”

Maybe I was wrong, this might be harder than it seems,
this bickering just makes me want to cry
But hopefully my plan will put an end to all these screams,
you never know, I’ll just give it a try

“Can’t you see our neighborhood is losing people fast,
everyone is running out the door
Never looking back in hopes to put this in the past,
feeling like they can not take much more”

I handed them a pencil and a pad on which to write,
they both looked at me as if I were strange
“Come on, write some verses on this sheet of paper white,
let’s see if this problem we can change”

They thought for a few moments, on their face the blankest stare,
nothing seemed to come across their mind
Then some pencil movement and some words one longed to share,
the other wrote some lines that he did find

They handed me the notepads and I read them both in time,
savoring this moment for a while
One had written free verse and the other metered rhyme,
when then upon my face there came a smile

I handed each the notepad that the other one did pen,
then watched as their emotions did unfold
They both shook hands and said, ‘Let’s try to never fight again”
and there you have my story as it’s told

Yes this write is fiction though you never know what’s true,
maybe in this poem you will see
It truly is amazing all the things that you can do,
when you write, not fight in poetry

Her mother used to always buy her notepads-- ya know diaries and journals, anything affiliated with paper. And a couple years later she switched from stories to poetry, soulfully but vocally humming the same tune mostly while she unpacked the groceries. And as she grew older she began to bring pencils with her everywhere. Occasionally jotting something down and re-reading it in her head and then looking out at the rain and then humming that song again. But soon enough she stopped, and her mom never though much of it so for Christmas she bought her a journal and asked, why don't you write anymore- and her eyebrows furrowed, her shoulders dropped, she put her hands together and let out a deep sigh. And she looked at her mother and said

"Whenever I'd start to write a piece, it was like a sudden release from all the ticks, all the constantly changing things when I'd listen to this symphony. And I know it sounds stupid but I'd try to feel the music and use it to help me write about whatever I was going through and it would work it was something about the decrescendos and how the instruments would blend that would make my hands shiver until I picked up a pen, see whenever this track would play I'd write my heart out but mom, when I saw him, it was like hearing a brand new song, every single time. When it rains, and you're dazed in the car driving on freeways. Do you ever notice how whenever you drive under a bridge, the rain stops, the car is silent and it's like for a moment everything is still? That's how he is or, more so how he was. He asked me out six times behind the bus, I said yes the first time but he kept going, he kept going and I kept hearing medleys every time he spoke, when he'd tell me he loved me i'd hear the guitar and when I'd say it back I'd hear the violin. there were nights when it would rain and we'd video chat in dark it was a little bizarre but I always loved the way he talked about my eyes, he said they were stars, like an Orion of some sort. And excuse me ma, but I can't rhyme anymore. See as time went by and we were on the phone when it rained he'd fall asleep and I could never sleep cause the thunder the the drums were so loud so instead, I'd listen to his soft breathing and every now and then he'd say something in his sleep with my name he'd be like Kae I duh duh duh, and Kae duh duh duh. I thought it was so sweet, I'd lay back and listen to his solos and even though I all I could see was the flashes of lightning, spiking and gleaming through my windows, I'd close my eyes, and the drums come in tune with his solos and is whisper to myself how he's this and he's that and he's that and this and that and I'd make so happy but there were times where the song was wrong, there were times when the he wouldn't sing his solos and the drums didn't bang on the right cue, sometimes his guitar wasn't tuned so when he strummed some of the stuff he said just did not add up but I didn't care Mom, I didn't care. Cause when the drums did not bang, I'd tap a metronome with my bow, when his guitar wasn't tuned I would pluck my violin for just enough time for him to get his **** together but as time went by, the strings on his guitar, began to wear out. His strings broke and I said baby I can get you new strings, I can play for us until you can get new strings but he said no, he did not want them. He did not want new strings, he started saying this was a mistake, but how could this be a mistake, when he was the only song that did not drive me to a pen. This could not possibly be a mistake, I know our song isn't perfect but it is still our song I cannot bear the though of finding someone else. Please do not make another duet because she will not tolerate it when your guitar isn't tuned, she will not tap in place of the drums she will not pluck her violin to keep the song going please do not go but he took his guitar and left with his broken strings. Mom I had a few rough days after that and I could sit here and tell you how God took away my sadness or how I woke up and got some kind of epiphany but the truth is I don't know, I don't know if he's out there kissing someone else or if his strings were ever or will ever be fixed all i know is the music stopped, and every morning I leave my violin in its case."

And when her mother saw that she was finished, mom didn't cry, mom didn't hug her. Her mother said, "How long has it been since Phillip broke up with you?"

"Mother, you asked why I don't write anymore. Well there's nothing left to write about."

*8/14/15 - 9/8/15

No amount of words can describe what I feel.
I loved him so much and now he's gone.
He took his life and left us all confused.
We are all depressed and broken now.
Struggling to pick up the pieces of his life.
He wrote everything down, in journals, notepads.
He once wrote that he wanted to give me his bible.
So it's mine now..and I haven't touched it.
I was stronger when it first happened.
I was the one who cried the least out of everyone.
I was the one who listened to his recorder.
5 hours of slurred speech and pain.
Now I can't even touch the recorder out of fear.
Fear that hearing his voice will break me again.
I just wish that he laughed more.
Or rather, I just wish I listened....