Immersing myself in the gnawing pain of dark emotion so that it eventually drowns itself. Monthly look at what’s depressing me.
It hit like heavy rot in the chest. Something I’d ignored had buoyed to the surface.
“An overdose. Thought you’d want to know. No way to live. He’s at peace now.”
The texts came in one by one. Screaming from the kitchen counter.
I saw his name and I fell into a time when I was wrinkled and unworthy.
I could only respond. “oh wow.”
“He had been missing. I knew it wasn’t going to be good news.”
I toughened. “You’re good to have kept in touch. I always loved him.” And. “Would it be strange if I went to the funeral.”
“No. You were a good friend.”
A good friend. For two years. Or was it less. I wondered, what’s enough.
Fifteen years since I’d seen him, all of it had flown by like embers separating in the sky. I had stopped calling. Left him in that hotel room.
At one time, I’d romanticized him and now I’d dressed him in gold. Let him stand in line with all of my people, now dead. Yet he hovered, a ghost.