#aw20

But then again, it took me 11 years to actually catch up on the Aaron West saga and dive into it. (I was shown WDHEO in 2014 and liked it but didn’t truly fall for it except “You Ain’t No Saint,” and then I saw a notification in 2024 about ILOF but never engaged with it. Then last High Holy Days I decided to go back and listen to WDHEO in its completion and found myself in the lyrics, freshly divorced, having supported my spouse through miscarriages, and still, even years later, grappling with the death of my closest father figure, my grandpa. So I dove into the whole story after that. There’s rarely a week that goes by now that I don’t listen to AW20, at a minimum WDHEO but I really enjoy spending a day with the whole story.) So yk, in 2014 I thought WDHEO had a natural conclusion that left Aaron’s story wide open to listener interpretation. I was surprised that there was more. But now so grateful that there was.

So yeah! I just wonder what more there is to tell! I’m excited for the graphic novels, it’ll be really cool to see the auditory format of the story translated to visual.

I stayed in the car,

and the light from the stained-glass window

didn’t reach me.

The cicadas are deafening,

their voices caught on the breeze.

You’re not walking next to me.

All alone is all I’ll ever be.

You’re not walking next to me.

I’m getting by.

The only faith I had left was a lie.

The leeches died —

turns out my blood was poison

the whole time.

If someone bombed Heaven,

the sky would look like it did tonight,

all fractured and outlines.

No one’s pressing charges;

I should get out by 10:00.

The bartender said I was “defending a friend” —

yeah, they jumped a guy I paint houses with.

The cops all got questions —

“Is there someplace you could stay?”

I wore out my welcome at Mom’s place in May.

…I don’t know what she’d say.

And I don’t talk to my sister much;

I think she’s sick of my shit.

She lives up in Boston now,

has a life with her husband and kid…

I try not to fuck with it.

But I’m a pair of black eyes

that just got my ass kicked in the glow of an exit sign.

The cop’s got some friendly advice:

said, “I would skip town before I ran back into those guys.”

Bloodied up in a bar fight…

I can’t bother Mom.

I can’t bother Catherine.

…I can’t breathe through my nose…

I think that it might be broken.

I’m mastering the art

of disappearing

in the middle of the night.

You said, "Hold on, the wound is gonna mend

And when it's all gone, I'll write in wet cement

In lieu of flowers, shake the dirt off