she keeps passing you by

There was a hatch, in the kitchen that lead to your room. When your parents decided to move to Pennsylvania, you had a going away party. About 40 of your friends showed up, 45 actually, I remember counting. They smoked weed and I left the room. You had a friend in a TOOL hat out front, and I sat with him. We poured salt on a snail and I listened to "Hooker with a Penis" for the first time. I felt guilty about the snail and I loved the song. Somehow watching a directly harmful action turn into a directly harmful result stuck with me. I realize this now, but I'm sure I realized it then. When I went back inside I learned what a contact high was. It was always strange to reemerge from the hatch- I never knew if your mom would be there, your younger brother, your sister. We were in a different realm.

Before THE party, there were parties. The thong pinned to your walls. You were the cool kid. You drove. No one in Brooklyn drove. Forgive me for remembering you as though you don't live, but I don't know you anymore... so you must expect me to consider the you I knew as gone. The only seventeen year old with a sex tape. You were a legend beyond your own years. When it finally happened, you looked right at me and said, "you're not even here, are you?" You were right.

.xx.

It was briefly after September 11th. I was in the shower and I lifted my ponytail in the shower and cut it off. My phone rang, the one with Snake on it- a Nokia. My best friend was calling to tell me that she loved me. "Warning" was playing and it was the first time she'd told me that, also the first time I'd heard it (from someone I wasn't related to). Not that I hear that song often, but I think about that moment in my mother's bathtub every time I hear it. I think of her often, as I don't let go easily. In the video, which I haven't seen since that year, there's a girl who screams in silence and shatters glass. Was it near September 11th? Or did she just call to tell me that she loved me? I remembered the important part nonetheless. The love.

Rewatching the video, she didn't shatter the glass at all. Memories are really over fantasized/falsified versions of reality after all. (But I loved the hell out of her too). I'm flying to California to touch a face I love. It's not the smartest move to make- but as I read the other day, tell someone you love them... to their face.

Remember life, can be, will be, is, good.