Hayley Fienne scattered herself a year ago today. A hammer. A trigger. I sent flowers to a funeral home in Chandler, OK. I called. Said, "I can't imagine what you are going through" and something about how time turns the past into a form of fiction. DeLillo wrote that, I think.

Her mom said, "That's not true. That's not true."

And I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't known Hayley like I knew Hayley. She used to do these oil paintings on the nights she knew she wasn't going to class in the morning. I've a layman's knowledge of visual art but even I could tell her work was real. As opposed to what? I don't know. You just felt it. It kicked you in the gut, left you spinning around the room, asking every ******* in tweed, "Can I get some water?"

There was one large canvas in particular that stuck out. She called it "Dissolution."

The work depicted a seemingly amorphous spiral of headlight blues and star whites against the murky black of space. In the dead center of the piece she painted the face of a young man, broken into quadrants. The face was nothing more than a faint veil. If you scanned the canvas, you'd miss it.

When she showed the piece at a gallery event, featuring the work of outgoing seniors, I asked her who the man was.

"It's Jesus."

"You gave him a shave."

"It's actual Jesus. It's 'I'm thinking of converting to Buddhism' Jesus. It's lonely, masturbatory Jesus. It's the Jesus who stares at a ceiling fan wondering why Peter won't text him back," she said. "And above all, it's the Jesus God asks a little too much of, the Jesus that calls in sick."

I said I was unaware such a Jesus existed.

"Exists. Dealing with impossible quotas, he has to shave."

"I think your Jesus looks like you."

"He is."



Now it's a year later. I find comfort in the painting, allowing the erratic brush strokes, both fleeing and advancing, to lull me to--what? Just lull, I grant, aimless and asking answerless questions.

I think about her at the end, at her end-- but not the violence of it all. No, I think of the release.

No intended romance. I simply wonder how she would have wanted that final let-go in life's calendar marked by letting-goes to wrap. I imagine her body separating from her mind, her mind separating from her memories, her memories separating from her name. I think of her matter fractured and dispersed, directed where the universe, in its imperialistic expanse, requires.

I call her mom. Say, "I can't believe it's been a year" and something about how outer space makes me think of Hayley.

Her mom says, "I don't understand."



After I hang up I look at the painting. I look at Hayley's Jesus. And I think in memories, memories that may or may not have happened, I think of them in my chest--not my head. I think about mercy. I think about the infinite. And is there a place where they intersect?

I wrote this for you a long time ago on a coffee stained napkin, after you left me, full of love, lingering in a cafe.

"For you, in all your follies and faults and the way they make you so perfect for me.
For you, in the moments that linger in the vehemently insignificant corners and corridors of things, as if drifted of their own grandure.
For you, for the words that spill to the floor and the brilliant way you understand the deafening silence that follows.
For you, for your supernovas and clever shades, for your daylight smiles and nighttime skins.
For you, for your familiarity and the impossible truths that stand as martyrs to say that I have loved you before.
For you, despite the treachery and quiet sinister fun of the world.
For you, for making me so terribly scared of dying."
Yet here I am, in your wake, so full of so many thoughts and demons. Know that I have died, that I have loved and lost with equal measure.

Dear lover
By the time we fall in love i would hope that you will have already learned my name, but just in case you havent i will tell you. My name is danielle lauren shorr. danielle like some ancestor i never met, lauren because my mom liked it, and shorr like the beach. I like the beach. No more like love the beach. Maybe almost as much as i will love you. I like the sand between my toes, the way the wind blows through my hair and makes it an ugly mess, i like the way pigeons search for any trace of food like its all one man for himself and this is the hunger games. I like food. But at first i might be embarrased to eat in front of you, i can attribute this to my history of insecurity and that ******* belief that girls are supposed to order salads on dates. But fear not. Because i hate spinach and fries with extra cheese are my favorite, and soon enough i will learn to embrace it. I will always want to embrace you. To hold you, to be close to you, i have an overwhelming need for touch. But a slight fear of intimacy. I will be afraid at first when you try to get close to me, i will put up my guard and attempt to hide my battle scars and everything i dont want you to know about me yet, ive been hurt before. And i know im not the only one on this earth who has been. But when i tell you that i want to get to know you i am telling you that i want to memorize every part of you like the way i used to stay up at night as a kid memorizing lines of books. I love to read. I love getting lost in the words that someone else wrote that so closely manage to speak to me. I want you to speak to me. When you are struggling or lacking in anyway i will assure you with 100% certainty that things will be okay. I will pull you out of pits of depression with every muscle, bone and limb i have in my body, i have not always been comfortable in my own body. And thats been a cause of my own depression. So when the day comes when i give myself to you, i am hoping that you will remember that every part of me is devoting itself to learning you, i want to learn you. I want to trace the lines of your skin, connect the dots with your freckles or birthmarks, play silly little games and hope you let me win, i will let you in. But only if you let me. And theres parts of me that arent my brightest, i will have days where i will be unable to see anything but darkness, i want you to hold me regardless of what i say, or my stubborness, i am stubborn. I am a taurus. When we fight i will be a bull, strong in my pride and unable to see any other side of the argument, i will tell you this right now: give up. unless its important. I want to feel important. I will want to be included in every part of your existence and when I’m not i will get annoyed and ******* and demand to be the center of your universe. I will act like this because i want to feel like i matter. Like i am matter on this earth so important that if i disappeared even for a mere second the earth would crumble and fall into pieces. And if i crumble and fall to pieces, i only ask one thing of you. Do your best to help me back up, im not asking you to put me back together but to try your best to keep me from breaking even more. And when you break, know that i will be here to comfortyou. To hold you. To tell you that i love you. to make you laugh at the most innapropriate moments about the most innapropriate things, to make life seem a little less painful, and a little more bearable. I will do my best to help you stay your best. And if we end up not working, it will be okay. Because nothing will matter more than the love i gave to you when it was good and if in the end it doesnt go the way we thought it would, well, we'll be okay. But if it does. If this love stays, know that i will love you and give you every single day i have, i will make you remember why you decided to fall in love in the first place, i will make sure to make you feel okay, i will always make sure you're okay. if you're having a bad day, I'll be right there with you. I'll be here now and forever.
Sincerely your future lover.

Empty girl. I can fill you up. Oh, would you look at that
How about another one?
Live it up right now while you're still young.
This ain't so bad is it?
I told you it was fun.

Simple girl. I can stir it up.
Complicate you so completely you'll swear you've had enough.
But I've got you started,
Now it will never stop.

Your passion is piling
Building up in your gut
You ask for release
I can give you what you want.

Live it up while you're young
Isn't this fun?
You say I broke your heart
You're not the only one.

You scream and you writhe
You sing out in hate
Can't say I didn't warn you
I told you this would be great

Lonely girl. I showed you my world
Not very pretty is it
But at least it feels real
Take what you've learned and do what you will
Mend all the birds that I nearly ****
And I'll cheat, and I'll lie, and I'll break, and I'll steal
Scan every room with hungry eyes until I find my next meal
And you'll always remember
I know that you will
When that heart of yours beats for me
You'll tell it to be still.

You're the hurricane
Swirling through my brain,
Your words are the lightning,
And my tears are the rain.

Nothing will make up for
The scars and the pain;
The suffering and tears,
And cursing your name.

I feel so depressed;
So upset and ashamed,
My world without you
Will never be the same.

Am I making sense
Or am I insane?
You are an anchor,
And my love for you is the chain.

I'm stuck on you,
Though you are the one to blame,
I got so hurt,
Yet you remained the same.

I'm drowning in my love for you,
Or is it hate that I now show?
After all that you've done to me,
I love you, but want you to explode.