Early morningYou will know my grave when you find it, someday. There will be no name and no dates, only song lyrics printed in uneven Traveling Typewriter, set quite small, but maybe not. There will be no flowers, for flowers are wasted on the dead. Hopefully from where you stand you will have your back to the ocean, so that I can see the water even though I won't actually be there, no. Hopefully I'll be in the garage wrapped within black and white wings, hiding in plain view. Hopefully I won't mind. Hopefully it happens faster and less painfully than life does, this thing called death. But for the meantime, as far as I have seen, it doesn't.
The city breaks
I've been calling
For years and years and years and years
And you never left me no messages
Ya never send me no letters
You got some kind of nerve
Taking all I want
Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Where were you? Where were you?
Lost and insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
Why'd you have to wait?
Where were you? Where were you?
Just a little late
You found me, you found me
I shouldn't hold my breath, should I? Prime real estate on the water doesn't lend itself to keeping souls, only creating them out of sand and seaweed, pressed tightly between the waves and the stones beneath until they resemble something that looks curiously like fossilized melancholy, or a little girl with an fistful of blue cotton candy and a broken heart. The sight of her will break yours. You just think you're tough.
Whatshisface has turned the corner. He has graduated to cast number two and seems to have his emotional footing back underneath him. Instead of seeing him perpetually sprawled on the floor from a decided lack of logic and balance he stands on the fringe again. He is the last person you would expect to be the first to take a risk, but there you have it. Maybe that's how he gets away with so much, that charm and easy quiet that fails to warn your intuition until it is so late it's pitch black and everyone has left. Hypnotism by fire. Don't say I didn't warn you, okay?
In any event, we are just happy he has stopped lashing out at everything and everyone. For the moment I will continue to evade his demands that I fill him in on the rest of my life because I'm busy doing other things, like drawing pictures, listening to music and trying to figure out what the rest of my life is supposed to be.
My current state is flawed, charred and twisted, dented, and rescued. I'm not sure if happiness is a ten-minute ice cream cone eaten in the park or a week without lifting a finger in Ibiza. I don't know if life is about a quick telephone call to someone I haven't talked to in a while or needing everything perfectly in place, clean, folded, pressed, organized and color-coded. Is that when it's finished? You're given your time card to punch out and ordered to choose between Quill and Commercial script?
I don't like those, they look like something you see in a trophy park and oh, that's right that's exactly what they are and How much for a custom font? and Oh, yes, I understand but you see, these deaths are different from every other one you have handled even though everyone must say that and no, I don't want them to look like those trophies because no one has any imagination or any creativity.
I understand the bronze will be tough and durable, but how black can they make it? Will that come off over time, a patina to blind people when the sun comes out?
Okay, good.
Because death blinds me, frankly.
(But what have you learned, Bridget?)
Oh. Do we need to do this today? I'll just rattle them off. Tomorrow they might be different.
Caleb taught me that fear can disguise itself as something else and that I seek it for kicks, sometimes.
Cole taught me that I am stronger than any (or is that every?) man I know.
Andrew taught me that sometimes a cookie is all you have in a relationship and that's okay too.
PJ taught me that a hug can fix absolutely anything, so many hugs can fix everything.
Dalton taught me that it's okay to hate green tea and lie about it for fifteen years running.
Duncan taught me that I love beat poetry and art but that I have no respect for affectations.
Christian taught me to edit. Edit, edit, edit and then edit again.
Joel taught me that even perfectly normal people make huge mistakes too.
August taught me that if it walks like a corpse and talks like a corpse and flips his hair like a corpse, it's probably the corpse's best friend and you should leave well enough alone.
Sam taught me that friends are here to help, no matter what they think.
Daniel taught me that not all men have to be bulletproof, impact-resistant or tough. Some can be so sweet and gentle it's criminal.
Lochlan taught me how to live, how to lie, steal, balance on a tightrope and how I can find comfort in my imagination when there isn't any comfort to be found in reality. He said Life is an adventure, and sometimes adventure isn't warm or safe or even happy but it's adventure, nonetheless. He is right. He's always right. When he isn't losing his mind, that is.
Jacob taught me how to die. (Fucking bastard, I already knew that one.)
Ben taught me how to love. Without rules or history or anything more than love for our own sakes. For that I will be forever grateful, for I would not have known it otherwise. He is still teaching, I am still learning. You won't get rid of us this easily.
I taught myself that what doesn't kill me just goes into the bitter stew and I eat it every day and grow stronger, healthier, even more jaded and completely cracked, too.
I need a blender so I can put it all together and have all the good parts mixed together from all of us and leave out all the bad things like mood swings, electric bills, broken boot laces and arguments. Maybe bad songs, missed goals, abandoned plans and burned toast can go in there too, and cover up the smashed watch that came back in a padded envelope because I asked for it and the blood pressure cuff that I took off an arm and put in the pocket of my sweater before the doctors ran in to save a life that had already been spent.
Maybe these mementos are the worst forms of remembering death instead of life. But maybe I needed their last-touched things because I have the first-touched things already. Maybe I'm not nearly as morbid or ghastly as I seem, maybe it's just that I wasn't ready. I'm ready with dumb things and plans that will never see fruition but blindsided by surprise, always.
Maybe my grave will have my name, simply carved in Times New Roman. Maybe there won't be a grave at all.
Maybe I'll live forever, a fitting sentence for someone who goes to the garage to play truant with the angels when the living are here, ready with their lessons, ready with their songs.