-Rei

You cannot measure how light I feel when you enter the room or how heavy I feel whenever you leave.

You cannot feel how fast my heart beats when I kiss you or how far it sinks when we fight.

You cannot relive the moment when I cried for you leaving or how happy I got when I saw you again.

How can I possibly count every thought I have of you if the thought of you is so constant?

How can I possibly know how much time I have with you if time is always counting down?

-Rei

I am so god damn hungry

But I don't think I'm going to eat today.

Not because money or time prevents me so but because maybe the meal I would've had today might make me a pound fatter.

And I know I'm a stick but I don't want to risk it. But it's less about want. More about need. I need to be skinny. I need to be small and strong. I need to be perfect..

so I won't eat today and maybe I'll starve to death but at least I'd die as a perfect corpse.

Does time heal wounds?

Some things can never be concealed

They're haunt us

Time doesn't heal

Days then years go by

Reality at times doesn't seem real

Scenes dance in our heads

Time doesn't heal

Some scars never close

Issues can't be repealed

Wounds remain open

Time doesn't heal

Some can't be forgotten

Bad memories steal

We try to move on

Time doesn't heal

-Rei

She has the kind of anxiety where I'm not me anymore and she thinks of herself as a door to the next person.

Cause, you see?, she's been hurt to many times before so she doesn't know when love is right anymore.

And yet when I tell her I'll never leave, I have the type of anxiety that makes me believe I shouldn't be here.

Cause I've been played, abused, and raped so I'm very surprised she's stayed

But the fact of the matter is I won't use her as a ladder. I'll stay by her side, I'll bring her up with me instead of climbing to avoid her tears she's cried.

I want to care for her as she does me. I will not flee although my heart tells me so. I will fight my mind to be forever kind to her.

She is kind, cute, and beautiful although blind to it all. I intend to show her how I see her. I want to make her heart happy and jump with glee. Even if in doing so changes or destroys me.

It's worth it.

     Have you ever wondered what it would be like, if you were someone else? One minute you could be an old man dying in a nursing home, and in the next minute you're a young and fit teenage boy sitting in on his first lecture in college. You could be an artist, working their way towards having their art in galleries all over the world, or a novelist that's won a Pulitzer. 

     I wanted this ability for a different reason. I didn't want fame or fortune, youth or wisdom. All I wanted was to stop feeling the loss. No matter what I did or where I went, the pain was still there. It followed me, it poisoned my thoughts and my choices. Every night was filled with nightmares, and each day wasn't any brighter.

     My final year of high school had almost passed, just four more weeks and I was gone. But by God's divine intervention or some sick luck, it wasn't going to be that easy. You see, I was in love. Smitten with a girl I had known for over a year, and I would have given anything to see her happy. The feelings, however, weren't shared. We met in my third year, she was seeing someone and I was just getting over my first relationship. Funny how that works, right? There's always that sneaking suspicion that some higher power is just messing with you, placing certain people in the way just to see how much havoc they can reap in your life.

     I fell for her when we hung out during the winter. We went and saw a movie, never used the word 'date' but I hoped to the heavens that it was. Just before the show started, the theatre was playing music. I was so nervous that I had to sing and, to make her laugh, I danced as ridiculously as I could. She laughed and looked at me with this shine in her eye, the corner of her lips curling up as she shook her head. I knew then and there how I felt, and I never stopped thinking of her after that. Sadly, it had to come to an end.

     Remember how I was just four weeks from getting out of this hell hole? Well that means before I leave, there's a special dance that happens. You guessed it; prom. The one night where you can be whoever you want, dance or drink or talk. I had made this ingenious plan on how to ask her, how to get her to say yes and let me prove that I was the knight in shining armour that she was looking for. Unfortunately, the plan started to fall apart. She couldn't make it, and felt terrible about it. So I blurted it out, told her that I was stressed.

     "Well, why are you so stressed?" she asked, slightly confused.

     "It's prom. I've been thinking of going, but I haven't really slow-danced with anyone before." I sighed as I spoke to her, hoping my racing heart wasn't loud enough to hear.

     She chuckled and said, "Maybe whoever you take will know how to dance slow," while staring at me, a puzzled look still on her face. "Plus, any girl would be lucky to dance with you."

     I smiled, cleared my throat, and looked her in the eyes. "It isn't that I can't dance, I haven't asked for the right partner. Prom is only going to happen once for me, and I want to make it special," I paused, hoping she understood. "It would be the most special night of my life, if you were in my arms while dancing." The shock in her eyes and how her lips tightened shut sent fear through my core. I knew I messed up, I just didn't realise how much.

     She never gave me an answer, just brushed it off until the next day. One of her friends pulled me aside and told me, "She doesn't feel that way about you," and, "She values your friendship." If she valued it so much, why didn't she tell me herself?

     So now I'm here, broken and frail. Looking for any way to make it better. Any way to get rid of this pain. Please tell me; will this story get better, or end even worse?

A pair of black heels discarded on the floor 

Scuffed and broken, they've lost the war.

Through a joyful past they've trodden 

Created memories of laughter long forgotten.

Now abandoned and replaced 

Nothing more than a waste of space.

For I am those broken shoes

Lying in the corner of this dimly lit room 

Ready to give up the battle 

An empty shell, bruised and fragile.   

Eyes closed, breathing shallow

Skin stretched tight and sallow.

     Rome. 2016, March. Hadn't seen him since the '90s. Drunk on being away from the States, drunk on red and white wine, and a stomach gorged with in-house pasta, bread, and anything else I could get my hands on. Alley, restaurant. Trevi fountain checked off. Young Italian girls waving Americans in to their restaurants. A brothel feel. I want to go into the story about the two Italians fighting over the check. The owner and a drunk patron. I want to go into the gelato after, the air of Rome, the bricks of the alleys. But I can't. Rare to see this profile written in first person, but this is different. Like Rome is different. Lost there. Must gaze upon the Pantheon during the first rays of moonlight. 

Lost there. Around a blind corner I nearly walked into Cornell. The man was tall. I'm 6'1 and he loomed over me. We glanced at each other, I registered the situation, and kept moving. GPS called me a moron in code, so I followed Cornell and his wife, and their little girl. I wasn't listening but I was. He was telling his girl about how life is in Italy. I heard, "In Italy..." then the crowd around us absorbed the rest. A few people took fast second looks, and then went back to their tables, their drinks, their own trips and lives.

     In Rome no one cares who you are. 

     Quite a beautiful feeling.    

     Rome is different.

    Crossing back toward where I had to go. Losing light. The Sun becoming the Moon, and I'm standing there then, staring at the street that I would cross to my hotel, to give up, but I'm feeling too fine, and I'm in Rome. I'm in fucking ROME. Not to sound incredulous. I put my phone to my ear to hear the directions, looked down the street. Cornell. Giving me a skeptical but not-so-sure stare, a sideways check. It would appear I was following them, but I wasn't. It didn't bother me. I laughed ahead. Rome is different. He disappeared down the street with his family, and I realized I'd been going the right way the whole time. Turned back, walked and thought about it. I could have had a conversation with him, I could have dropped one name. His parents lived next door to my friend's parents here in West Seattle. He'd skated with Cornell, and once told me he and his parents would watch Cornell mowing his parents' lawn from upstairs, even after Soundgarden took off. We could have had a conversation away from the music, the words, just two dudes from here laughing about the suddenness of meeting in Rome with such far-reaching connections to the past. What stopped me from shaking his hand? I would like to fall back on ego, but it was only ego in the sense that I didn't want to be a fan, a number, even with a rare connection. 

     But the truth is I am a fan. And though I don't believe in regretting something you've already done, I should have shaken his hand. I didn't have to tell him that his lyrics were brilliant, his voice one of the most distinctive in all remembered time, or any of that bullshit people like him, the few of them, hear and have to deflect or appropriate when they're out in the world. I also simply didn't want to interrupt him or his family while they walked in peace as the Moon rose over Rome. 

     I found the Pantheon, young moonlight. Breath stolen. 

     This morning I awoke to a text from my buddy, Dave. Four words and an abbreviation: Dude, Chris Cornell died. WTF?

     Tap google. 52. Suspected suicide. No matter, he's gone. They all go, they don't live long enough to see themselves shine like the rest see them. And they don't care. Sitting here now, blasting Louder Than Love, and sending my best thoughts to his family. 

     Bukowski once said in a letter, "Death isn't a problem for the deceased, it's a problem for the living." Or something like that. Looking back on the dead artists of the last few years, Cornell hits pretty hard. 52 years old.

     Much love to his people. Hands All Over just started. I need more coffee, and to kiss my dogs. 

     Outside it's grey and bright and warm. 

Last night alone

Here in the dark

Here in this room

I should be cherishing

This moment

Like a fine aged wine

I should be drinking the solitude

Celebrating this ending loneliness

Putting to rest the ghosts of

Yesterday

But you are on my mind

I want to rush to your side

Kissing away the sorrows

Upon your chest

I want you to know

Your hands are no longer

Empty

That someone

Understands more than words

Could convey

Someone understands

Those memories that bind

Our hearts to yesterday

Stealing us away from the present

And clouding our hope

Of tomorrow

The recollections of those

Dark nights so severe

Your whole body

Rocked with heartache

And you wondered if you

Would ever see the dawn

Someone understands and

Celebrates the possibilities of

Tomorrow

Someone sees past the

Darkness

Into the light of the soul

Where love flows

Like the river Xanadu

Last night alone

And yet we never were

Life is not static.

I never was

anything once.

I moved, I melted,

metamorphosed,

changed course,

ran into storms.

I learned, I loved,

I was battered

and bruised.

How could I write

message to person

I once was

when I never, ever

stayed in one place?