eyes and voices, three years old.

but i'm not sure how.

i found something recently that made me ... well, think and wonder and remember and question.

i want to preface this...

i wrote this on november 8, 1999. three years before boy passed:

"i sit here in the aftermath of spirituality. chemical enhancement opened this door. it opened a door to my grandmother ... who spoke through me in such a soft language and by god, she wanted to talk. there was so much she'd been bursting to say for so long. she'd been inside, hovering, waiting patiently for her time. and what she had to say scared me, because i realized that i was and still am on the wrong path... i think i might have met the right people at the wrong time. boy and i aren't right for each other right now. our colors are clashing, and we're trying too hard to make them match, so hard that we can't see the beauty in the contrast. all we can find is the respect of each other, not the combination. yet, i'm in too much of my own to see my own color ... change scares me. it petrifies me, as much as i may yield or sway, change will snap me. god, it hurts to know that. boy's colors have shifted so majorly or maybe i just saw them in the way i'd hoped to see them. did my emotions interfere? it's almost more than probable, but he can't be this orange all the time. something changed this weekend, and something's still uncomfortable. he can't be this orange all the time.

i think it's just his frustration and confusion. i'd say anger if that were true. but anger, i can just sincerely fix. frustration and confusion are more difficult to deal with. i have my own ...

right now, he's my match ... the guiding light in a crazy haunting cave, but i'll find a lamp soon ... and i'll be so sad to blow out that match. but it'll be something that i do subconsciously, no second thought, until i reminisce with someone about that day. then hopefully, the match will still be there.

i don't want to look at it as abandonment, and i don't want it to be that either. i want to see it as growing, and hopefully, he'll see me the same way, as the same light when his day comes. i don't want our day of parting to ever come. i love him.

i love the colors he always lets me see. i love his challenges. the challenge of keeping our friendship at our own level, and yet topping it every time. i have such doubt. she told me it's wrong, but i don't want to listen. i want to learn from my own mistakes. i'm so stubborn. why can i be so open-minded only in my own drug-induced metaphysical world? why do i let the everyday qualms sequester what i've been given? how can i do this to myself and still take myself so seriously?

she's letting me know all of this too soon.

she spoke too soon, and now, i've got to wait for the patience and faith to appear to understand the full impact of what she's said.

is that why i don't remember? is that why i can't remember? is that why it upsets me? my brain too small. my will power too overbearing.

i can't let myself go. i can't lose the control. fuck that ... i just got my control. i want to wear it in. sleep in it until it's threadbare.

fuck that, i'm not ready for boy's time to be over yet. i like this time. i like it a lot. i love it. i got a little angry at that.

i want to suspend him in time, because i know i won't find another mental companion like him for a long time. that makes me so sad. we can metnally embrace each other and not feel so bad.

i'll cry a lot when he leaves, but he's right. he has to leave soon. why do they always leave ... don't leave me.

he doesn't belong here for much longer, as much as i want him to stay. his spirituality is somewhere else, somewhere not so confined.

god, i want to go with him, but i can't. i think philosopher will be here, which is good. i'll need his strength.

boy will be back eventually, and he'll have more to teach me then. a lot more. he'll be more willing to teach me then. not teach me what he wants to teach me, but teach me everything he can. the next time he comes into my life it will be forever, as the most comforting friends. as mental companions. but we've got years yet before then, and i'll be sorrowful in such a deep way until then.

he's trying so hard to make the separation easier, but he's just making me feel bad. and i want to cry. and i really just want to cry. for the first time that i can remember, i want to cry for fear. for fear of abandonment, desolation, imperfection, loss, and most of all ... fear of pain and sorrow.

we have until christmas ... if that long.

and counting time, knowing the end is near is hypnotic, yet so disheartening and sad for fear that something will go wrong, and i won't see him again... like i'm supposed to.

now, i'm overcome with worry that he'll find his destination but on the wrong path. too difficult or too easy. either way, he's going to have to brighten his heart more. either way, i saw all of this this weekend, and it filled me to the brim with sorrow because she told me it was almost time for someone else to have their try at the carnival game of breaking the spell.

but i'm willing to give him so many more tries if he'll just stay.

i'm ready to jump, and he's holding my hand, telling me for once to think about things. so i sit and dangle my legs over the edge, and i have a cigarette while he mulls things over, deciding what kind of dive to form. i can be entertained by just staring at him, but someone else is going to come up and talk to me. someone else is going to be here soon. it's with a sorrowful reluctance that i'm pulled from boy's hand. he's not ready for my jump yet.

he won't stay. he never does.

i can only hope ... pray ... wish that i'll meet him again on the flip side.

but now i know what philosopher meant when he said i was brave. because in seeing the end of the story, i'm tempted to put the book down.

he was right though, in the glow of the streetlights, the muse of conversation, in the hope of love and fright of lust. in so much more than boy, philosopher, and i could imagine all to be true, bright and all encompassing ... in all of that, and through them, i was, and in a way, always will be brave."