how can different songs by the same artist remind you of opposite things? i guess that’s the weird relationship i have with current joys. i listen to calypso or altered states and i’m barely teenage in the back seat of a golf cart, the sunsetting florida air whipping around my face at a technically illegal 20-some miles per hour. i listen to symphonia ix (the live version) or in a year of 13 moons, and it’s four years later; i’m surrounded by half-full moving boxes and collapsing against my closet door, weeping into already drenched hands. “and i’m just waiting for the moon to change.” clearly i have an obsession with that song today. am i ruining his halloween, too? is it bad that i’m still sorry? that i would still hold his hand in the sweltering summer heat? now i’m just sitting here wondering how he ever drew the conclusion that i was some type of ultra-abusive man-monster something or another. i truthfully have no clue what he thinks. as cliché as it is, i wonder if i ever did. when he came to visit me, the first and only time, he gave me something he’d been working on for months. i knew he’d been making something but had no idea what it was; “it’s a surprise,” he would always tell me. i feel like he may have given me hints but i could never guess. he put a sketchbook in my hand that day, held together by tape and love and maybe some super glue, and explained himself as i worked my way through it. he had written or drawn in almost every page. “i wanted to fill up the whole thing, but i wanted to give it to you when i came here.” i don’t cry in front of people. i wept into his shoulder and i could not tell you whether i was holding on tighter to him or to the book. i should not be debating whether to put it on my shelf. it should be tucked away in the very furthest reaches of my closet. it should never see the light of day but once or twice a year—and still i contemplate. he told me that every word he wrote, he would mean forever. he said that after he’d went back home. it was a reassurance to me despite his rock-bottom state, despite all the conflict. does he still mean them now? does he still love my voice enough to write it five times on the same page? does he even remember the sound of it? i do not remember the last time i heard his voice. i don’t remember our last call. if i had known all that would’ve happened afterwards, i would’ve savored it more. that visit is not something i regret. i could. i’ve thought heavily about it, but there were no strings attached. no ‘except for’s. it was perfect. it was christmas day in the middle of a war. i never knew christmas could last five days. i never knew christmas gave you matching sunburns. i still have half of a resin heart on my keys. blue background with a brown scorpion swallowed up in clear plastic. his, yellow with black. i will never know the fate of that scorpion. it is long dead, and yet i worry. we never watched beautiful boy. how am i only remembering this now? how am i still sorry? (are you noticing a pattern?) i am still here, as i’m sure i’ve written over and over. i am still here waiting for the moon to change.
