Well then

Once when I was littler, there was a rest stop. Inside, there was a bathroom made of metal, but it still smelled like acrid urine, like piss had been bleached into the small, evicerous holes of stainless steel. There are some things that permeate anything. There are some things that will not leave. Just now, another friend (acquaintance, classmate, well-wisher, whatever) died. Just now, a hole emerged in place where I had not known there was matter.





In the spaces between these letters, I've put on music full of melancholy; I've found another beer; I've wondered where there sweetness that lingers on my fingers came from; I watched my dog find a more comfortable place.

And now as the trumpet proclaims, as the man sings, as I cannot finish a, ok, no. Now, as I realize it will not end, I realize it will not end. That from this point forward, it will be ubiquitous, a Facebook post, a singing saw, all around in the ether, the fish sauce spilled in the bowl, the stack of mail, the mounting debt... it is here. The accordion key. The signal that sounds in the dark.

The dark.

I went out to see the moon, orange and bulbous, a pumpkin in the sky. All I saw was the midnight blue of west coast twilight.

I miss him. I miss Jim and Kev and Myles and Tim and Sean. Its too soon to accept this truth; but tramps like us, baby, we were born to
die.