this is still fresh

2.17.04

'did you talk to him?'
'no, i won't be able to.'
smirk, 'oh, what, is he in jail or something?'
'no, terry...he killed himself...'
what? what? what? what?! uhnnnnnnh...
'yeah, terry, he killed himself.'
I heard drums
everything shook, my body shook, my hair, my eyes, my teeth
I dialed someone's number
to just tell someone, someone objective and strong.
funny, a friend of hers jumped in front of a truck the day before.
feel myself separating from flesh, floating above and beside
I am sheer, off-planet,
a static-y holograph.
smirk.
only coming through in waves.
so many things he gave me
in my house
everywhere my eyes fall
I wore the brown boots he gave me for the first time
yesterday, walking to school, smiling because I could feel
the imprints of his toes
the narrowness of his ankles.
funny, I was saying my practice from the Kalachakra, the 3-verse version, in rhythm to my steps
in his Docs
the first time I could make it all the way through...
I hung up the phone and looked for them
everything in sharp-focus, zoom detail
drums beating.
I wanted to hold them,
sniff the insides to see if I could get a whiff of him
I could
I wanted to lick them,
to sleep with them like
two awkward brown teddys.
I got online to tell my professors
I wouldn't be there because I couldn't stop crying.
I stared at the screen, moving the pointer back and forth across the tool bar
'Help'
the button transformed into 3-D with each pass
HelpHelpHelp
I stroked the word with the pointer, I PETTED it,
wondering if I clicked it, if I could rewind or fast-forward
erase.
It's only been a week
I am still sheer
'a mother's son has left me sheer'
6 suicides in one week said the Funeral Director.
I wish I could avoid February altogether from now on.
We had agreed to quit smoking. They said the garage floor was littered with cigarette butts.
I had been rolling my own, judiciously, until then
I bought a pack of pre-rolled American Spirits, the sky blue ones.
That was Our brand.
I don't like going to work anymore
I see him everywhere there, bouncing on his toes and beaming.
I find myself thinking, 'oh! I gotta tell him this...oh...
...oh! Josh would love thi...s...
I still think of him as accessible, even though I saw him
I saw him dead in his fancy fucking queer suit
I swear I thought his eyelids fluttered.
I keep thinking it's merely an elaborate prank he has devised to
shake me to my very
toes...oh.
I suppose it is.
I have visions of him sitting up, a vampire-zombie, biting me.
I just compulsively ate a Wendy's #4 combo-
the most I've eaten this week.
hope I can keep it down. I'd like to puke all over him. Dead.
His lips were still red
I know I saw him breathing
How long will I feel so sick
so blurred?
I smell some cologne on some passing faggot,
it's him.
I see the back of someone's buzzed head-
him.
everything, everything is a reminder.
I hate him.
I was afraid I would punch his corpse when I saw it.
But I was only afraid when I saw him, tricking me, lying there.
Just afraid.

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Comments (13)

	and she was: 08/19/2005 7:12 AM oh, honey. oh honey, oh honey. I know those feelings, and you know that I do. This is gorgeous and so clear. The help button. The smells. The #4 combo. I know it, I ache it with you.
	schvetybetty: 08/19/2005 9:26 AM thanks, funks, this is the first time i've let anyone read this besides my sister, and i think it's time to reopen this unhealed wound and stuff it full of goldenseal and ashes and let it be a cicatrix. i'll pierce it and tattoo it, decorate it. might as well, because it's not going away. love to all survivors, but especially you.
	thequixotic1: 08/19/2005 11:24 AM Painfully, painfully clear. I was not clear at all when Tim left. I don't know the date, because even at the funeral, when I tried to think of what day it was, my mind reeled away from knowing. Even now, if I sat down and tried, I could find in my head somewhere what day it was. I don't want to know what day it was. Because he can't take 1/365th of every year for the rest of my life for himself. Fuck that. The boy I knew wouldn't have wanted me to remember him that way anyway.
	schvetybetty: 08/19/2005 3:35 PM I can't get the date out of my head. Yeah, fuck that. Oh, I am still so pissed off.
	paxgitmo: 08/20/2005 4:49 PM ...and once again, the blinking cursor mocks my attempt to comment. Been there. Feel you. It was still a beautiful read.
	thatmissugurasu: 08/22/2005 6:06 PM Oh I had no idea. Wow. That sounds so hard, so hard, so hard. But your written words are beautiful, poignant, shocking. I had to read it again. You're amazing. And, I hope, a little closer to peace today.
	schvetybetty: 08/22/2005 8:40 PM why, actually, i think i am, but not quite 2/3. thanks, tmg. i do feel a lighter and more righteous anger; fuel for sculpture. give me rocks, give me stones, so i can study 'em. so i can study 'em.
	zilzala: 08/22/2005 9:11 PM Man o man. I am so sorry. Losing your friends is like losing a little piece that never, ever comes back.
	thatmissugurasu: 08/22/2005 9:26 PM Yep, stones, smash away with chisel and hammer. Smash it. What a sharp toothpick this is, but beautifully carved.
	schvetybetty: 08/22/2005 9:42 PM true, zil, true... puncture wound icepick... give me the pnuematic chisel, now, please. i promise to wear all of the protective gear, earplugs and everything. can you wear an ipod and earplugs simultaneously? that would be as dreaming. gouge away, you can gouge away stay all day if you want to
	rosiewolf: 08/23/2005 9:14 AM I know that they don't think about the fury they leave behind, the emotional wreckage...if they did, they wouldn't do it. I think it's right that you are angry.
	hulahulagirl: 10/17/2005 12:50 PM speechless
	schvetybetty: 10/17/2005 7:51 PM yepayepuhhuh