Its been 10 months. I still keep your picture in my wallet. It reminds me it wasn't a dream. I keep it in there because in truth, I can't remove it. every time I try, I stare at it and it just stares back, you stare back... Smiling.  Frozen, with your perfect, everlasting smile. And in that moment, I can see in your unchanging expression that you love me.

And then I put it back in my wallet.

So instead of removing it, sometime later, I find a place to get drunk and stumble home and bleed my eyes to sleep.

here i sit, ghostly in the mist. what was once passing time is now but a chiming in the wind. i died at twenty two. broken by the truth she told. and though i won't be buried for many years to come, my heart stopped on that faithful day.

when all came crashing down.

**** the day! with it's brightness and everlasting sight. i hate the sun! how it gets in your eyes and burns you even when its cold. seattle can go **** it! with all it's insufferable yuppies and endless rain. just gimme a dark place and blanket with no one else around.

for that's my idea of heaven.

one of these days, you will be me. one of these days, i will be you. one of these days, the world will turn in my direction. one of these days, the wind will blow the dust across the sea. one of these days, i won't think of you quite so much. one of these days, my heart won't have so many cracks visible when you look into my eyes. one of these days, the tree's in my yard will be big and strong and no longer bothered by the wind. one of these days, we will be old and full of hard lessons and tired sighs. one of these days, we will return to the earth and be one again.

one of these days, but not today.

love is not serious. it is but a way of nature that exists in all "higher" beings. it is not important nor is it useful. we as a culture put our emotional stock in this idea without thinking of its repercussions. life is not a movie. we who love are fools of the highest caliber. chemicals, hormones, the world tells us to appreciate one another and for what? to make babies? why? why, would anybody want to do that? if there was a button i could push to end humans entirely, i honestly believe i would think about it only for about 45 seconds. just long enough to think about what i felt as a man in love and then how i feel now as a human without and then BOOM! the world would fix the ecological damage we've dealt it within 250 years, the polar ice caps would normalize and true idea of nature would continue as it should.

undisturbed by love.

"we are but dust and shadow in forever of time"

I awake sometimes, numb to the storm that rules my life. I get up, brush my teeth, clip my nails and try to tend to all the things I neglect in my hurricane of sadness and mourning. Honestly I find it strange and foreign when these moments pass through me, like a man suddenly appearing in a wasteland, wandering all alone. Not knowing which direction to travel in or when the end will come for such a lonesome soul. Nevertheless, the vastness is undeniably awe inspiring. Somehow I find a peace in the clear weather of not feeling. A fleeting peace, but I try and take time to relish in the fact of not being pained by thoughts of the future. Its not like my mind is cleared of the thoughts or feelings, Its just that in those merciful periods I don't care. You haunt me wherever I go most days and even so, left to my own devices, I would probably never allow you to leave.

I find the time is a special kind of freedom I do so enjoy.
Unburdened by the thought of you.

What brighter parcels of my soul used to resound upon my being are now but a shadow in the valley of my heart. All of my better Angels have escaped, leaving only the scars they exited from. You who were my solitary unknowing protector, are gone now, and in your absence, only demise of self can follow.