I walk the streets of night alone, again. I have no one to keep me company, but the words of a song coming out of a cd player. I jump at a loud sound and know that it is nothing. I stand outside of the circle K smoking a cigarette and staring at the moon.

I haven't been back to the old spots since you left. I don't hang around schools even though it is summer. I go to the gas station, and if I want to go farther, I walk straight. No turns, I don't want to miss you more. I don't want the ache of my confidant to be locked in my chest.

I blink up at the stars as the smoke of my cigarette makes wreaths around my head. I call a number that no longer works and pretend your voice mail picked up.

"Hey, I miss you. I wondered if you wanted to walk with me?"

Then the operator tells me that the number I called is no longer in service, for the second time. It tells me to hang up and try a different number. Very sadly, I gaze at my phone for a second and then turn it off.

It is hard to think how I can't just call and ask for a walking buddy, or a friend, or anything from you anymore. It wells up in my chest and I start walking again. Tears roll down my cheek.

'Let it be,' I think.

I stare ahead, I'm going north. I can't help but smile a little bit at that. I'm going toward you. Only a few hundred more miles to walk.

There is no reason for apologies anymore. There is no more reason to try. The sum of our times together, could not out weigh the time apart. When we see each other, we say nothing, pretending that the other does not exist. I wait for you to say something to me, but it never comes. I still want to grab you by the hand and start running for the park. Yet, I refrain. I never do. I smile at nothing and keep on going. There is no love between us. There is no hate, there is nothing.

I am disdainful of the situation, but mending can not happen on just one side. So I smile and think of the good times and pretend you moved somewhere else. The girl who ignores me is not the person you were. You stand there. You don't laugh, you don't play, nothing. I don't see life in your eyes. I see it behind your lens, and that is it. Oh the times we had, the love we had. It isn't there anymore.

So I sing you a requiem. A funeral song. And I mourn what is now dead and buried between us. We made our beds, there is nothing we can do but lay in them and lie in them. For liars we are. Both of us pretend the other never existed.

I can still taste you, even when  we don't talk. We are still connected even when we hate each other. Never ever again will not last forever. I know that you can taste my mind as much as I can taste yours. when will we both take our heads out of our asses and say sorry. You know I have never liked him. He rubs me the wrong way. We sit at opposite corners both hurling the word immature. Can't we both take credit for being idiots. Your immature, I'm immature. Who actually gives a shit. I still love you, even with all of your baggage. I still wade through mine. I don't care what you have said. I dont care what you will say. We will say the same things. I love you, lets never fight again. Maybe this time we can actually pull it off. Maybe this time we won't start acting like we are 17. Eh, who am I kidding. This is all just a stupid pipe dream.

You and I were muses to each other once. We wrote the same dreams, but now....we can't even be in the same room. We were each other's knight in tin foil armor. We did things. We had adventures. We lived on opposite sides of town, and some how we were best friends for three years, when neither of us drove, we would ride the bus, we would walk. We always still managed to see eachother. Even when my eyes were too far apart. Or we both got grounded for the ketchup and vinegrette fight.

I will always remember, two girls sitting in a garage with a gas leak. writing a book about nothing and everything. The world was so beautiful then. I miss my soul mate. I miss the only woman who could make me cry worse than my mother could. I miss my writing partner, my sister, my secret keeper. I miss having a best friend. there have been none, but you.

I was living in a record company. In one of the studios, while I recorded an album. the owner was in love with me so he thought it would be a good idea. He brought some of my stuff in so that I was comfortable. He gave me the best producer and the best mixer in the company. We were all friends. I made out with everyone except for my producer. I was watching the rain one night when an old man came in with an award that another singer had one. He talked to himself as he hung it in a display case. The three guys came in and sat on my couch. The old man went outside by the pool. I followed him. "Were you a star here," I asked. "A long time ago," he responded. "What is it like fading into obscurity." "It isn't as bad as they say. You get to raise a family, and live and die in peace." "What is dying like, is it slow?" He was quiet. There was no response. He stared at the rain on the pool. I went inside. "i think i depressed the old guy." the boys laughed in response.

the dream faded and turned into something else.

nick and i were climbing a mountain. there was an old abandoned house and we started playing a game of dodge ball with hacky sack kind of balls. I hid in a corner and waited for him or one of the other people who were with us to try and sneak up on me. I heard someone come around the corner. I leap up and without looking kissed them full on the mouth. "that is cheating!" Nick yelled at me. I was confused if nick was yelling at me who was I kissing? I opened my eyes, it was someone tall. I couldn't really see facial features because we were in a cave type deal. He grabbed my hand and said that he needed to talk to me. He pulled me off into another room in the cave. Tash was in there. She was wrapped comletely in wires. She was cleaning through the wires. She was scubbing the floor. Tears were rolling down her face. She would yell at random, to know one in particular. The guy was laying on a couch near Tash. "come here" he bekoned, but I still couldn't see his face. So I was scared. He finally came to me and leaned down and gave me the most fulfilling kiss I had ever had. I saw fireworks behind my eyelids and he tasted like fresh peaches. It was amazing. I thought I was floating. And then he left. He didn't even tell me who he was. I knew I would chase him where ever he went. I had to find him

the dream ended.

The summer sky is blown through with clouds as I sit idly. I stare into the moon, hoping to discern a bit of sense from it. I listen intently to the sounds of dogs barking, and an argument in the apartment complex next to mine. The souls of my feet itch, but I am too tired for a walk now. I have been awake for too many hours, days, years. How long has it been now? I'm not quite sure anymore.

A lifetime of pettiness seems to beget nothing but misery. I wouldn't know, I try not to be petty. Although, I will admit, at times I fail at that. I can be petty and jealous, but I try not to be. When I am I try to apologize, at times I fail though.

The stars scintillate above me, christening the sky with light. The clouds veil this naming in murky, mystery. I wonder at the secrets being held from me. I would really love to know the language they speak, the songs they sing. That is a dream though, and often dreams are disappointing in reality.

I shiver as a cool wind runs it's way up my spine and fluffs my hair, like a lover. The caress is intimate, yet fleeting. It is all too much like the flame of passion. I long for the warm breeze to fill my skin with love, instead of this cool wind. This wind seems forced and formal. There is no love, just a sense of constraint, the wind owns me but does not feel justified in a passion for me.

I sigh, realizing that my thoughts are a rambling mess. This is the insanity of insomnia. I sit awake for too much time and then my mind wanders from me. It brings back tid bits that make no sense. They ooze through my brain like a slow drip of honey down a kitchen counter. It tickles my senses to think like this. It feels like a commingling of ideals, a blending of rationality and artistry. I feel non-responsive though.

I am drunk on the night. It sky is wine. The sounds are ecstasy. I am in love with the taste of it on the edges of my perception. I start to nod off holding a cigarette. Taking deep kisses from it's little deaths. I take a comfort in it and my weary eyes start to sag.

I start as the sun flashes in my eyes. It is not full day yet. But it will be soon, and I am not so in love anymore. The sunlight burns my eyes and dulls my wit. Soon I will be asleep for a few hours. My longing will begin and I will be stifled. I will have to join the march of progress. Until then...all my love to you dear moon.

She didn’t look the same, she looked strung out. Her body was little more than a husk of her old self.

Nothing much is different. I hit an age that is the end of my second decade of life. Nothing seems to be getting better...but hey it isn't worse. My loathing for the skank ass living with my parents is the only thing that is different. It grows.

I was thinking of starting a little garden...tomatoes and peppers and herbs....maybe some flowers...turn our balcony beautiful. I don't know.

I keep seeing myself screaming at my parents...telling them to fucking grow up. It builds this little ball of aggression in my chest....

a day less than a year until I can go to a bar...three hundred sixty four days....now three. I sound like a goddamned alcoholic. 

A whisper rushed from my lips, a curse, nothing more. It was cold out as the sun sank beneath the balefully, blue, winter sky. The ends of this damn freeze was almost here, but I couldn't help but still feel it deep in my bones. It was a chill that I just couldn't warm anymore than I already had. I shivered and shoved my hands as far into my pockets as they would go. Damn, I wished summer would hurry up and get here and bring the warmth I so desperately needed. I sun as it sank behind ever looming storm clouds. My thoughts were scattered. I just wanted some sleep.

"Hey captain," a voice said across the way.

I looked away from the sinking sun and over to my neighbor across the way. He had a cigarette dangling between his lips. I painted my face in a friendly smile, "Hello," I said in a friendly yet cautious manner.

"What's happening?" he replied....That was the beginning.
*************

"I love you, and I think you love me. I think that you are just too scared to admit it. I think you feel like you don't deserve it. I want you to know that you do, because I think you are," He sputtered almost incoherently.

"You are drunk," I hissed in reply.

"Yes I am, but I know how I feel." he stammered, "So am I right."

"I don't want to talk about this right now, you are drunk," I sighed trying to let him know that we could discuss this rationally later.

"I am not as drunk as you think, just answer the damn question," he spat.

"No, I don't love you. I think you are making an over complication of yourself," I felt a wince inside at how brutal and careless I was being. I couldn't stop now though, momentum had started. I had lit the bridge, I had to leave so I wasn't on it when it burned.

"Where are you going? Come back," he was almost pleading.

"You are drunk. I can't talk about this right now," the cruelty caused another spasm of guilt in my gut. I left.

That is how it ended. There is a middle...but that isn't important.