2002-03-30 - 10:31 PM
Bleak Morning On An Aeroplane's Departure
"I feel as if this is going to stain my teeth."
"Yeah, I always feel like that after coffee."
Eric and I sat on the couch by my bay window, lit with the morning glow of 6 A.M., sipping back our Dunkin Donuts coffees - all the whiles flipping through each other's writings. I picked up the sacred notebook he'd been carrying around all throughout the stay, and started paging through, taking in every single thought and emotion he deemed worthy to write down. Of course, not to my surprise, most of them were odes to Adrie or thoughts somehow linked to the thought of loving her, which was odd enough, since Eric was right on next to me, perusing all of MY old writings about Adrie (and all of the other unmentionable women of my poetry). I took notice of this and quickly turned my head over to my right, trying to see past Eric, and at Johnny boy typing away at the computer, at something I didn't really feel like asking about.
I exclaimed, "Hey, you should write a poem about Adrie and join the club!"
"Who says I haven't? Err, I mean, I didn't - but still", was the only reply he could utter out.
In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote a poem about her too - despite her veiled attempts to put herself down (actually, blunt attempts), truth has nothing to do with anything she has to say about herself - at least, all the bad stuff she speaks about herself. She's an amazing person. She's deserving of the "ultimate compliment" - because she truly is beautiful. "And beautiful entails all facets of being."
I took a tiny sip of my scorching coffee and told Eric, "I feel as if this is going to stain my teeth."
He punched back with a seemingly meaningless reply of, "Yeah, I always feel like that after coffee."
I couldn't help but remember back to my freshman year of high school, when Eric and I would refer to our love interests as our "coffees" - after all, the girls we pine after give us the sort of hectic energy to last days and weeks - it's that same hectic energy that'll have us spend such a big pie piece of our life to writing about them. It's crazy if you think about it. Really, it is. And I'd be lying if I said that I thought calling them our "coffees" was anything but cool - a glimpse of our girl, is the best way to start off a day.
After remembering this, I thought about the stains they leave on our souls - the type of stains that never leave, never wash out, and frankly, we're never really sure if we want them to. I got to more thinking, and it struck me - that we'll both end up having the same stain. The stain of a girl that couldn't be forgotten - however many times we lose our minds. Of course, she ended up my best friend (a great thing), and now has ended up as his coffee (a great thing) - but in either case, we're stained for life. And that's a great thing.
I came back to the moment, with the vibration of my cell phone buzzing by my side and ushering me in. Turns out - my brother needed me to drop off some food for him at the gym where he works. So with that, I prepared the food, told them I'd be back, and stepped outside into the array of harmonies, made possible by the birds that sang a sunny morning to me. It was a dull light about an hour ago - somewhere between the darkness of Jewels' basement and the passing through my front door - the day got beautiful. And like I said, you can't escape days like that.
On the drive, I did much thinking. Well, what at the moment felt like thinking, really was just me being in a "poetic" mood. Eight billion thoughts that ran track through my head, never stopping and never slowing - not what I call thinking, but then again, it's not totally without. I was just in that "poetic" mood. I was about ready to cry. And I felt that weight on my chest that everybody seems to be talking about lately - except I felt it drifting away with the wind that passed by my open windows. And you know, sometimes, beautiful mornings are best enjoyed by yourself.
I couldn't have been more by myself.
Take it both ways. At the time, I felt so alone - with Eric leaving and taking Adrie's heart, with John fading away like sinking skylines somehow, with the blind and gradual losses of everybody else, with the distance from my family - hell, with the search for my true self - I really couldn't be more by myself. I was alone in the car, with nothing but "Your Song" playing, and the crashing wind against my face.
And yes - without any of these people, I couldn't be more than what I am right now, whatever it is. All the good I have in me, comes from them - and I know this, I'm not stupid. It just sucks that somehow, things seem to distance themselves - like the million miles of road and rubble that displaced Eric from here and now. But it's okay. Things change; you just gotta change on with it some way.
I dropped off the food - picked up an order from a nearby diner and then brought it back to my brother - then headed on home. The drive had been a soul-saving experience - and I'm pretty sure that in retrospect, the past two weeks were pretty much - a soul-saver. I mean, you take the good with the bad, but at least it's something. One day, Eric and I were at Anthony's house, and we were sitting around the kitchen table, talking like eighty year old chess players in a nursing home, when the question was brought up to me: Would you rather go to hell or have "lights out", you know, have everything just go black?
To their surprise, I chose hell. 'Cause hey, in a place with so much suffering and pain - there's gotta be the yin and yangs - there's gotta be things like hope and memory - and that's enough for me to withstand the tortures of eternity. I don't want black. I don't want "lights out".
So I guess in the end, I'm the type of person that likes to have something, as long as it's something, bad or good, rather than have nothing. At least it's something. So with the bads and goods of the past few weeks, I'm glad for it all - 'cause hey, it's something.
I pulled up into my driveway and sat there, waited until the song finished. I got out of the car and sighed. In other times, I would've left it at that - but this time, I decided to take a deep breath back in. It feels as if my soul's been saved.
I waited just a moment - before I headed back to the couch by the bay window.
