Rick is gone

Rick is gone. He’s been gone for weeks, maybe almost a month now. I am dead without him. A huge part of me has become roadkill somewhere between here and New Mexico. It hurts thinking about it right now, at almost two in the morning as I type this in the dark with Bub curled up under a blanket on the other end of this couch. God, I miss him. Like I absolutely cannot put into words. There are some things of an intensity that no words exist to describe them. I like to think it is because the world has never known them before, but I don’t think I really believe that. It’s just a silly egotistical thought. I guess I’m guilty of having a few of those, but at least I’m aware of it. I do think that I am able to feel more than most people. I don’t know if that’s really a good thing for me, but I am fairly certain it is the truth. For the most part, I think it blows. I would rather not have such a great capacity to feel, because the pain always swallows its happiness and leaves me with nothing to do but hurt. It’s like the better something is, the worse it eventually is for me. I tend to try and avoid relationships with people, or at least ones in which I would be vulnerable or have to trust another person with my emotions, which I rarely do. I don’t have nearly enough faith in the world to do something as stupid as that. But Rick has been the only exception to that in my entire life. He really has never let me down (still) and I have never really questioned whether or not he loves and/or cares about me, because I have just always known. He shows it well. He’s not from this world. I think he’s from mine. Or I’m from his. Or we come from the same place. I do know we happen to exist on the same wave length, I’ve known that since we met. That night when I went crazy crying hysterically and he was holding me and trying to calm me down, after telling me that he was going to go back to New Mexico, I told him that I loved him as much as I had always wanted someone to love me. I asked him if that made sense, and he said yes. I think he knew what I meant. But I wonder if he could possibly understand the importance of it to me, of how great it was, that I would do anything for him. I hope he knows how much I love him, because if he doesn’t then I am a failure at caring for someone who I care about more than almost anyone in the world.

I don’t want to go into great detail about the day he left, but it wasn’t pleasant at all. He actually hadn’t planned on leaving that day, but we got into an ugly argument, mostly because I blew up at him and acted like a total cunt, which I of course regret. It was really stupid of me. I was a hideous, it was wrong. I guess I just snapped. So saying goodbye was kind of awkward, I wanted to tell him how much I love him and hold him but I felt like I had no right to do that after making such an ass out of myself. We did remind each other that we were loved, and then he went into the bus station, and I drove off with Bub, headed to the coast to stay with my parents for a couple of days. In a fucked up way, I think we both in some way are okay with the way he left, because it certainly made it easier to say goodbye (not really easier, but superficially). I would have been nothing but a big bleeding broken heart making a mess all over the place if we hadn’t been arguing. I don’t know if I could have handled it. I’m sure Rick would have dealt with it much better than I did, but he has told me several times that he hates goodbyes too.

I have seriously been considering moving down there to stay with him. I really don’t think I would like it down there in NM, but who knows? I survived at the coast through some of the worst years of life, so I could pretty much take myself out of wherever I am and get lost in smaller realities within my own. I don’t think it would matter much where it was, it could probably be anywhere in the world and as long as he is there, I would be happy there with him. Got a few things I have to finish taking care of here first, if I decide to go. I think I will, at least just to visit. I can’t go too long without seeing him, or I will fade away completely. I really would. As strong as I am (because I am) and as bright as I glow, as vital as I may seem, he has understood me in a way that no other soul on this planet has ever come close to doing, and to have him and lose him would be more than enough to drain me dead.

I love you, Rick. I love you as much as I’ve always wanted someone to love me. Thank you…so much.

-Mona

Better ride this ride while I’m on it…

This is not done…
This is for you, Rick. I wasn’t going to post it unfinished, but I got stuck for some reason and if I don’t post it now it may never make it on here. I have much more to say, and I will.

It’s nighttime where I am
What does it look like
Where you are?
Here where I am
It’s too dark to see
Much of anything
If there is even
Anything there

Maybe when it
Gets light
It will reveal
A world as empty
As I feel
I know I’ve lost you
But I can’t
Let it be real

Not yet
The hurting
Is on hold
On the other end
Of the line
Across the thousands
Of miles between
your world
and mine

But since it is
Pain meant for me
It’s impatient like I am
And it warns me
That it won’t hold for long
After it agrees to wait
It reminds me
That I’m not as strong
Now that I’m
Without you

I wish it wouldn’t
Start at all
Because I know
Once it does
I can’t stop it
I wish it would see
How little I have left
And out of mercy
Overlook me
But it won’t

And I won’t
Know what to do
Love like this
Isn’t even love
There is no way
To say it
There are no words
For what it weighs
To lose it
Or betray it

I know you know this
But I’m sorry
For everything
That made it
Come untrue
For everything
I could have done
But didn’t
Couldn’t
Or wouldn’t do
I’m sorry that
I couldn’t keep alive
What we had
That made me feel
Alive
But I hope you know
How hard I tried
I know you know
How hard I cried
And I want you to know
I will cry like that
Again

And it won’t be
The same as when
You were there to
Hold me
And to be there
As my witness
To see
How I feel
Rather than just
Hearing it
How I say it

I wanted you to see
In every tear
that I meant
every word you hear
When I tell you
How much I love you
I wanted my sobbing
And the sound of my
Heart aching
To tell you
What it meant
If you left
And what you’d be taking
almost everything

I know
I had to let you go
But so many
Slaughters ago
My heart was doing
Better than you’re
Leaving it now

Like a giant wave
With a whirpool
To be my grave
Rising and gathering
My heart is stuck
In the tidal wave’s
Crush
As it crashes
And turns to ashes
Against a bed
Of deadly rocks

The storm
Is formed
Around the

It comes in waves…

I cried last night like I have not cried in…a long time. I didn’t miss it. I woke up this afternoon with my eyes swollen shut, but before I tried to open them I thought for a moment that all the crying had been a bad dream. It was, but it wasn’t.

Rick is leaving. He finally came out and said it the other night. I have been afraid of the tears I knew I would inevitably cry when I had to face that reality. I have been doing my best to distract myself from that, refusing to accept it, putting it off because I didn’t know how I would stop crying once I started. I feel like my heart has broken again, I had kept it safe for a while. Now I am reminded why. I can’t do this shit anymore. I could feel it breaking in my chest, it hurt in the dullest kind of ache that spread out until it filled my rib cage, and I think it was throbbing instead of beating. Rick held me for the longest time, he even started crying after I really lost it. I can’t stand the thought of him going a thousand miles away, I feel like I’m losing him forever. He says I’m not, that he will visit often and reassures me that he isn’t “leaving me.” I won’t let myself believe anything good, I have to prepare myself for the cruel and unmoved effects of both time and distance. They can ruin the most important things within a person’s life. I hate them for that. It’s all really fucked up actually. When I was sobbing and crying and getting my ass kicked by some invisible force that just kept tightening its hands around my heart and wringing it out like a fucking towel that was soaked in all the tears I yielded, I told Rick that I loved him as much as I had always wanted someone to love me. And I do. Because as unwise as it might be, I really do believe that he loves and cares about me. I have thought that with others before, and been tragically mistaken. So much so that I put what I had left of my heart away somewhere that it could feel for things outside of myself, without being very adversely affected by any of those things. There was nothing wrong with that, and it served me well. But Rick is very unique and too special to pass by or merely appreciate without diving head first into loving him completely. I guess I thought a head-first dive would be okay…the love I was falling into was certainly deep enough. Yeah. What I feel for him is the deep end of the pool. You shouldn’t go jumping into it without making sure you can swim all the way from one side of the pool to the other, without getting too tired. If that happens, you drown. There’s no one to save you. You just have to thrash around in that awful panic before you past the point of exhaustion, and become still as you sink to the bottom, letting your lungs fill with water and looking up at the surface of the moving water so far above you. That suffocation is the panic-inspired weight of something intense enough to fucking slay you. I felt it last night. I have felt it sneaking up on me throughout the day. I am doing my best to keep it at bay, just enough to not lose my mind because if I did, I doubt I’d be able to get it back from this sadness.

I didn’t want to be here where I’m at again ever, if I could help it. I guess I can’t. Pretty much the only person that could is going to be a thousand miles away from me soon. There’s no noise I can make, no salty ocean I might cry, no glass-shattering scream that could convey all the pain. I want to go home. Bub is going to miss him too. I trust Rick with Bub more than anyone on this planet other than myself, and that alone speaks volumes. Bub is my baby. Rick is our family. He has been since I got Bubby, over a year ago. He’s been mine even longer. God, it’s going to feel like he has died when he leaves. He will just be gone…and I’ll be stuck here with my memories. All the things we laughed at, which have been a lot. The times I most needed someone to help me in some way, that he was there to help and made me feel cared for. All the weird shit….

trailed off… now the date is February 25th…was interrupted, had to abandon this prematurely…he is leaving in only a few more days…so I’m sure I will be back to spill my fucking deformed heart out all over anyone that happens to come across this and is unfortunate to read it. I’ll probably sound like an EMO kid.

I don’t know what to…call it, and I don’t even know what to say

“so…

this is all going to sound a little crazy, because that’s exactly what it is. I can’t imagine anyone reading this and actually believing so many different catastrophes could happen one after another in such a brief period of time. It will probably sound like a joke, or something right out of an outrageous talk show, like most of my life has turned out to be so far. but I don’t deliver deviations of truth, and although oftentimes a little unsettling, all that is claimed in here has actually taken place.

where the fuck do I start? I guess at the beginning of this mess…okay, so a few weeks ago, I fucking got pulled over. but for once, it wasn’t for speeding. I know, I’m amazed too. I had just pulled out of a parking lot in gresham, and had only turned my dash lights on, not realizing that I hadn’t pulled the little lever out the 2nd time, to turn on the headlights. I would have noticed it in a minute or two, except that a goddamn pig beat me to it and pulled me over. Motherfucker! So of course my car was towed, and I was left outside in the fucking freezing ass cold with my suitcase that was in the trunk, with one of my clients (Robert) who was in the car with me when I was pulled over. That really sucked. He ended up having to take a cab home all the way to Milwaukie from Gresham, and I called Jim and he came to get me and take me home. While I was waiting for him to get there, Robert and I were talking and he offered to give me the cash to get the car out of impound on tuesday, when my grandfather was going to be in town and able to help me get it back. I hate accepting help from people, when they don’t expect or want or ask to be paid back for it later. It just makes me feel kind of weird, or lame…like I’m a freeloader or something, which I definately do not want to be. But anyhow…so my dad came up tuesday and we spent several hours that day running all around town, first to the gresham police department to get the police release we needed for the tow yard. I had enough to cover that. But the tow yard wanted like $260, since the car had sat there for two or three days, which I find fucking ridiculous. so I had to explain to my grandfather that I had they money, but it was waiting for me in milwaukie and I hadn’t been able to pick it up before he got into town, since I didn’t have any way to get out there. so I called Robert and asked him if he was still able and willing to help me out with that, which he very cheerfully assured me that he was. so went to the tow yard, which ended up being the little place I am familiar with located directly around the corner from The Montavilla. Same place where Marcus and I went through a hole in the wire fence and made a very unsuccessful attempt to syphon some gasoline from one of the cars parked in the gravel lot that it surrounded, almost three years ago now. kinda funny. so my dad covered me for the tow yard, and they gave me the keys and opened the gate so I could pull out of it, and I was back on the road again. I have had so many cars towed in the last couple of years, and not once have I ever been able to retrieve any of them after they were towed. the little craptacular ford tempo was the very first one that I got back. so then I drove out to Dark Horse Comics, which is apparently where Robert works as an editor. My dad headed that way shortly after I did, and we ended up getting there at the same time. I called Robert from outside and told him I was there, and he came outside to meet me. My dad was across the street, a little further down from where we were, so we were kind of a diagonal distance from him, and he was of course standing outside of his car with his arms folded, leaning against the back of his car as he watched the two of us wave and walk up to each other. I didn’t know that it was going to play out that way, and I hadn’t expected him to see us together at all. we said hi and exchanged some brief words, then he gave me the cash and we hugged, and said goodbye. I knew walking back to where my dad was standing, that he hadn’t liked the sight of us hugging at all. Dad’s a little bit racist, and I was counting on him to make some sort of lame comment or ask some really stupid mildly annoying question having to do with Robert being black. I just rolled my eyes and he knows how I feel already, so it had nowhere else to go. I gave him the money, and it was done.

okay…so that’s great or whatever, got the car back. right? well, sure. but it’s not as simple as that, because I am actually on bench probation right now, from my last court date (that was fun…in troutdale, the city hall and police department and the courthouse are all housed within a giant barn with farm animals and everything…!) and so when I got pulled over for the lights not being on, that is a violation of my probation. that’s not good. the judge in troutdale had sentenced me to 20 motherfucking days in jail, on suspension. and now that’s been fucked up, which means that I very well may be doing that 20 days here very soon. have to go to court on the 20th of this month, and then I will have a slightly better idea of what is going to happen with that.

now, as if that isn’t bad enough…the next few days after the tempo was towed, I was stuck at the house and I slept a lot. I didn’t get high for a few days either. but after about three days in bed, I was really wanting a hit. By that time, I was dreaming about getting high. I woke up right before I was going to do the hit in the dream, which is how it always ends unless it lasts all the way through doing the hit, up until I pull the syringe out and wait expectantly for the rush to wash over me, and then I wake up. Either way, it’s fucking torture waking up from one of those just once, but I kept falling right back asleep, and the dream picked up right where it had left off and ended the same way- prematurely. so anyhow, eventually my mom made it over to jim’s that evening and brought me a hit to help me out because I felt like I was dying for one. I went in the bathroom and hit myself, and got so high after going a few days without, that it actually made me start dry heaving and I felt incredibly nauseous. anyways…since that night, it never really went away. I still felt sick to my stomach the next day, and the day after that, and all the way through the next couple of weeks. most of the time anything that I tried to eat, came right back up. I was sure that this batch of dope must have been somehow different, or stronger, or maybe that my health was declining and I wasn’t handling it so well for some reason. then finally after a couple horrible weeks of feeling miserable, my mom suggested that I go to the store and get a pregnancy test. I hadn’t even thought of that before she mentioned it, and when she did I laughed and told her that there was no way I could be pregnant, because I was on birth control, and have been for over a year. but just to be sure, I went and got one. the fucking thing tested positive. yeah…don’t have the heart left to go into the personal background on this topic, but let’s just say that two of the most traumatic experiences in my life have been abortions and things related to them. so in a way, I am very numbed to finding out that I will have to get another one. but in other ways, like when I stop to think about it (which I didn’t do much…) it is impossible to hold back tears that have been waiting somewhere very buried and almost not even existing anymore. I told Rick about it, and told him how much I wished that he could be here when I had to go to the clinic, and how much I wanted him to be with me there too. I had an appointment made for tuesday, and on saturday the possibility of asking him to fly up here monday and go with me finally showed up in my head. I didn’t expect a yes, and I would have understood if he couldn’t do it. I figured it was a long shot, especially since it was so soon and I figured a plane ticket would cost quite a bit on such short notice. I looked online, and it didn’t seem as steep as I had thought it would be. I hadn’t mentioned it to him, but the next morning when I woke up and checked my phone, he had sent me a message throwing that very idea out there, asking if he should catch a flight to portland so he could go with me. that was so fucking great. I jumped all over the opportunity, telling him yes and that I would help pay for his ticket if that was an issue. I was adamant that he not worry at all about the particulars of making it here, but just to somehow get here in time, and I would help take care of the rest. and he did. he got here. but…before he got here…only about five or six hours before he landed…I got in a bad car accident. My car was completely wrecked, and I hit some guy driving a truck. caved in the side of the truck pretty good. I guess I hadn’t seen the light change, and ended up running through a red. almost collided with a school bus, but managed to avoid that and ended up hitting the truck instead, pretty damn hard. smacked my head on my window hard enough to rattle things around in there pretty good. had a hell of a headache for the next few hours, even after popping a few aspirin. a witness to the accident called the fucking pigs right after it happened, which made me nervous. I thought they would be there pretty fast. so while I was watching her on her cell phone calling and reporting the accident and requesting that an officer, I dialed my mom and told her I had just gotten in a pretty bad accident and that the cops had been called, so I needed her to beat them to where I was, on the corner of 52nd and powell blvd. talked to the guy I hit while we were waiting for the cops to show up, and gave him all my info. told him I don’t have a license or insurance, and explained that I didn’t want to be around when the cops showed up because if I was, then I would be arrested. that didn’t seem to do the trick. I assured him that I would be able to pay cash for the necessary work on the truck, but he still wasn’t moving. so finally I offered to give him a couple hundred right then and there, as a starting payment on whatever it would cost to get it fixed. that got through to him. he wrote me a receipt and signed it, and then said “okay…let’s get out of here.” my mom had showed up right as I was giving him the cash, and we threw everything from my car into her’s and she was just getting back in the car when I saw a cop car sitting at the light on the corner, waiting to turn onto powell where my car was sitting, less than a block away. I pointed him out to her, told her to hurry the hell up and we were gone…but that was a close one. so I don’t even fucking know what is going to happen because of the accident. I know it won’t be good. I’m already in a fuckload of trouble. and it does kind of fucking suck knowing that I am going to jail for sure, and possibly for more than 20 days…what will I do with Bub? How will I stay sane in there when every fucking moment of consciousness will be spent worrying about him, wondering if he is okay and wanting to call and check on him several times every day. the longest I have ever been away from him was the two days I went to New Mexico to spend my birthday with Rick. And that was really hard for me…

but back to the good part of all this…rick is here! he is going back on sunday, and I don’t know how I will say goodbye to him and then somehow make it one more month after that until I see him again. but when he comes back in early december, it will be to stay for good. I can’t wait. I have been so fucking happy the last couple of days that we have been here at the motel 6 by mall 205 together. bub is here too. just like last summer. except totally different than last summer, because I am so in love with him and he knows that now, and he is in love with me too…but it doesn’t just stop there. such simple statements don’t hold even a fraction of the meaning involved in it. It’s…very fucking intense. I haven’t loved anyone in the way that I love him. Not a single soul. ever. I know he cares about me too, like really cares. he cares in the way that I have always wanted to be cared about, and haven’t ever felt

and that’s where I trailed off…
after making it that far, I got so tired that I fell asleep and told myself I would pick up where I left off and finish writing the rest when I woke up…why do I still believe myself when I say that?? I’m really note sure. I know myself well enough that I shouldn’t still fall for that old trick anymore. I guess I just always honestly believe that I will finish things I abandon prematurely…but it just never happens. It is impossible for me to pick up where I leave off on anything I write…but that’s okay. I am constantly reminding myself of that. The rest of the unfinished stories are always told. Just not as part of the same story, if that makes any sense. It all comes together as it goes…

october 2nd, 2007

“Just took off from El Paso, headed to Phoenix and then to Portland from there. Supposed to arrive at 7:20pm. For some reason I am not asleep right now, which makes no sense since I didn’t sleep at all last night, and only got a few hours the night before. And the even stranger thing is that I haven’t gotten high since right after I got to the motel 6 with Rick after the three hour drive from the airport in El Paso across the border into New Mexico. Wasn’t for a lack of effort though. I had one ehll of a stab fest with no happy ending. I’m going to start referring to that little ritual as my ‘stabotage.’ Not that I haven’t already bitched enough about it, but it truly is fucking exhausting and incredibly depressing. It’s usually enough to take any good mood away. It’s discouragment at its finest. It’s worse than that, actually. It’s a good thought theif. It leaves happiness and pleasure of any kind in ruins all around you. It absorbs anything positive out of the atmosphere. Your entire perception of everything is darkened by it, dropping the value of anything good down to almost nothing.

But it just couldn’t quite do that this time. This time the happiness won. It was too big to be defeated by that old adversary. I was with my best friend. We were together there, in the very familiar and oddly nostalgic motel 6 surroundings. Just like back in Troutdale, where we spent most of the summer that just ended. I will never forget any of the time we have spent together. Not a single moment. I’m saving them in the inner-most safe within my great vault of memories. Where I keep safe all of the most sacred things. I love him in a way that I dont’ think I have felt love for any other pesron in my life. It’s insanely unique. It’s beyond difficult to describe. I have tried a few times, and haven’t been able to contain it within the limitations of words. Part of why it is so unique is because of how…unique our situation is. You know, the circumstancial stuff. Our relationship is unlike any I have ever been a part of, and it’s all very far from anything that most people could even imagine being able to relate to. Everything from how we met, to all that took place in the two years since then that brought us this close, down to just a couple of days ago when I flew down to spend my 20th birthday with him. Every part of our story is unordinary, parts of it almost certainly sound like exaggerations or jokes. I think it is amazing. Actually I know it is amazing. We’re amazing together.

A few days before I got there, I realized something. It just sort of hit me, at full speed, crashing into my awareness in a way that seemed to appear out of nowhere, but yet didn’t surprise or confuse me at all once I felt its impact. Like I just hadn’t seen it rapidly moving in on me, but when it hit I felt like i had expected it to show up weven without knowing or seeing it on its way. And I also felt a strong sense of understanding. I knew why it had showed up, the moment that it did. I understood where it came from, why it had come, and it made complete sense to me. I didn’t question it, because I knew it was right. I just felt it and knew I was supposed to follow it. I trusted it. I wasn’t afraid. So I dropped the bomb on him shortly after it was dropped on me: I am in love with him. I want to be with him for the rest of my life. He can’t be as far away from me as he is. Not for much longer. I really can’t live without him in my life, they way that he was up until he left a few months ago. I had him with me every day. I loved it. We are on the same wavelength. Our minds are alike. We think the same on so many thing. When one of us starts talking to the other about pretty much anything, we immediately know exactly the meaning of whatever the subject is, its full weight, the reasons we have for thinking they way we do about it, even if we don’t totally agree. When we nod or smile or respond with words, reassuring each other that we’re on that same page, it’s really more of a shared feeling than it is words or gestures. We don’t even need those, we just kind of know. We read each other so well in a lot of ways. The connection that exists between us just demanded that we find one another and let it be. I needed Rick, and the love he has given me. I needed it without knowing it, before I ever even knew him, and now that I have been lucky enough to have it, I am aware of how much I need him and how important he is to me. I can’t lose him…”

I’m trailing off there for a few reasons…but believe me, it went on and on and on…I actually ran my pen out of ink a few minutes before I landed back here in Portland. I shit you not. I couldn’t believe that I ran the goddamn pen that I had just bought completely out of ink…anyhow…

first of all, I haven’t quite finished typing all of what I wrote yet. But I think I’m pretty close to done, because I’m not going to include the trainwreck of tangent trails that I ended up going on, after writing excitedly about Rick until my hand was so cramped I had to stop and work it out with my other one. somehow after going on and on and on some more about how much I love him, I managed to trail off into an examination of other relationships with those that have been (most of which still are…) important to me, and I think my whole point with doing so was to point out how unique our love is, because it isn’t flawed like most of the “love” in my relationships with people prior. It is really what I have always wanted. I think I got most of the important stuff from my aviation-elation…I’ll check later to make sure, but I’m fairly certain that I got just about everything I managed to jot down before diving into past case studies…

and…now for the good news…

he’s coming back at the end of next month. yes. really. seriously. and I can’t fucking wait.

here it is: something I don’t want to write

Okay, well I think I’ve certainly managed to put off explaining what I hadn’t included last time…
I have been trying not to think about it too much, because it makes me incredibly sad for an incredibly beautiful reason.

A couple weeks ago I started out to write this, and abandoned it before its end. With me, that is always a guarantee that whatever made it onto the paper will never be returned to or finished. I have to re-write whatever it was from start to finish. I can’t stop in the middle of something important and pause the force of energy that powers what is being written. And if I do stop somewhere along the way, the heartbeat of the story being told fades out like a song as it draws to a close. It is impossible for me to know what I woud have written next, if I try to pick up where I left off. Because I can’t hear the rhythm of the current that was cut off. just doesn’t work. at least not for me. so I can’t use what I started to write…

alright…it’s time to come out with it. here it is…

Rick is gone. gone as in relocated to New Mexico, which might as well be on the other side of the fucking planet. he’s been gone for a little over a month, and I have missed him each day since he got on that greyhound bus while I was sleeping at the motel 6. Marcus had been hanging out with us there that day, and had passed out on the bed while Rick was packing. and then eventually, I passed out myself. I don’t really remember the last few moments of awareness that come right as you fall into sleep itself, so that usually means that I was very tired. well when I finally woke up (feeling like shit, I remember) Marcus was awake, and Rick wasn’t in the room. I asked where he was, and he told me that he had taken my car and given him a ride downtown, to buy his bus ticket and that he was gone. I knew that he was going to buy it that day, but I guess I hadn’t realized that meant he was actually leaving on the same day. I would say that it made things worse because I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye, but that wouldn’t be the truth. I know he did it to spare us both of having to say it, and I thank him for it. It would have been too difficult. I’m glad that he and I have almost always been on the same wavelength. I think it’s a very big part of our friendship, our bond, or whatever you want to call it. I don’t think there is a term for it, personally. It is highly unique. And as it tends to be, because of the rarity of relationships like ours, they are precious in ways impossible to turn into words. it isn’t something that can be told, like a story, to anyone outside of it. those who experience energies like these are the only ones that ‘know’ them as a result of being a part of it.

so anyhow…coincidentially, he is working at a motel 6 down there. heh. I will never forget anything from the time we spent staying together at the motel 6 in troutdale, and a couple of times switching to the 92nd and stark location. when we had to get out of the apartment because of a bunch-of-bullshit eviction, I had led the way to the motel in my little escort wagon, and rick followed right behind in my piece of shit van. the entire van was literally filled to the top with boxes and rick’s belongings. everything but the driver’s seat, and even that was on the verge of being obscured in the labyrinth of all that we had room for. what he had left to take that the van couldn’t hold, I had in the back of my wagon, along with my own stuff. but I never have much, since I have never settled in somewhere of my own, and my place to stay has never really stayed the same for very long either. I have jumped around a lot. Or drifted, which is how I usually phrase it. when I moved to portland two years ago, all I came here with was one big black suitcase full of mostly clothes, that I had borrowed from my grandparents when I had flown out to Missouri the second time. I still have it today, and it has gone everywhere with me. It is actually kind of sentimental in a weird way. It is a tangible representation of famililarity. unlike a couple years ago, it no longer holds everything that I drag around with me from place to place, in a different car just about every time. now I have a few big travel bags that go along with it, mostly just clothes as well. I really don’t own much of anything other than clothes, which I am constantly as a method of avoiding having to do laundry, as ridiculous as that sounds. so I guess in some ways, I am still a creature with very little material needs or strong desires, or I guess I just don’t require much. low-maintenance, that’s what I mean. not all the time, or in all matters. but overall, I would consider myself more low-maintenance than the average person. hell, what the fuck do I know about anyone ‘average’? nevermind. know the fuck knows.

Okay, we’re starting a new paragraph because I had started going off on a tangent trail there for a second, and I don’t want to stray too far from the path. god, there were so many times when Rick and I were together, and did nothing but go from one tangent trail to the next, for hours and hours, talking excitedly about a million different things, but never managing to arrive at whatever original thought had provoked the conversation, and whatever it was became lost as handfuls of other thoughts crowded each of our minds, waiting in line outside the rave club that was always booming inside my head and that was always overflowing, chaotic, and wishing it could hold more of them long enough to keep them all. I thought our tangent trails were fucking awesome. sometimes we reached a level of absurdity that obliterated being able to speak and instead all we could do was laugh at each other, or ourselves, in acknowledgment of how comical or ridiculous we were being. I love the way he breaks out into the smile that he does after I say something funny. I remember it perfectly. the details, exactly what it looks like. it is fresh in my mind right now, and that’s fairly impressive since I haven’t seen him in over a month and my mind’s visual memory space deteriorates into nothing at an alarming rate. it always has. normally I would be struggling to remember the way someone had looked at any given time, especially if I hadn’t seen them in a while. it was really priceless. I think a lot of the times when I was talking with him, I would concentrate a good deal of energy into cracking witty jokes at the right times, because I wanted to see him laugh. there was just something very…pure, or even innocent in some sort of way, about the particular smile that I got out of him right after something I said, and I recognized it easily as being the introduction to his laughter that always followed it up.

I have’t let a single person take even one photograph of me since the last one that Rick took before leaving. I don’t think he understands that I can’t replace him. I can’t force the comfort that I felt when he held the camera and took one picture after another as I did whatever I was doing, no matter what it was. he took them while we talked sometimes, unconcerned about trying to apply any sort of structure to the pictures, and without worrying about what the end result would end up being. it was very natural, the way he took the pictures. it was brilliant. I was totally relaxed, in a way that I don’t think I have ever been with another person, even when they weren’t photographing me. it kind of blows my mind realizing that. I cant imagine just carrying on with conversation, or walking around the house, or tweaking on my computer while someone took pictures of me as I was doing it. I would be freaked out and unable to function. I would only be able to focus on what they were doing, and be worried about what I should be doing.

I have spoken with him a few times on the phone, and we have made plans for me to come visit him there for a little while. we were going to do it this month, but I had an idea that was worth waiting for, which I presented him with last night when I called him, and which he totally agreed we should do. I am going to go there for my birthday. I pointed out how close it was, and reminded him that he has taken pictures of me on my birthday for the last two years. we have a set of photos dated October 2nd 2005 and another one taken October 2nd 2006…and it is really important to me that there be a set for October 2nd 2007. more important than I understand well enough to relate to someone reading this. I feel like it has to happen. like I need it to happen, or I will not be okay in some way. whatever that way is, I don’t want to find out. I just want to be with my best friend on my birthday again this year, and I am so lucky to have had him with me for my 18th and 19th. I am unbelivably fortunate to have known him at all. he is more important to me than anyone else, and that’s the truth. my grandparents, my little sister, kevin, my mom (in some fucked up sort of abandoned way), marcus, shea lynn, and a list of others are all of great importance to me, and I care immensely for each of them. but it’s just different than any of the relationships I have with those I love. so different that I don’t understand it. I know why it’s so difficult to catergorize or define, or compare to something else, and I know why it leaves me in a kind of awe that has no language. I know why it feels and appears to be a very vague mystery. it kind of is. but I have a name for it, and I have called it by this name for quite a while, it is one of my favorite words and its meaning is a topic which I have admired and devoted a great deal of thought to in my life thus far, and a theme which has stayed with me as time has continued. it’s name is: transcendence. it’s something we don’t know very much about. but sometimes, we are exposed to it in relatively small doses and it is no surprise that we don’t know what in the hell to think of it.

well this energy that exists between me and rick is a real-life story of such a case, where two people are given a dose of true transcendence.

I feel like this is the end of this entry. there is so much more to remember and to preserve with words, a vault full of memories from the last couple of years since we met. I will tell more of our stories in the future, and I know that there will be countless other references to the things I have learned from my relationship with him, things I have felt because of it, ideas that have been inspried by it, inside jokes that don’t make sense outside of it, and all of the rest of it too.

Rick, if you’re reading this please just know how much I will always love you. Thank you. For everything. Because everything is exactly what you gave me.

-ash

here it is: something I don’t want to write

Okay, well I think I’ve certainly managed to put off explaining what I hadn’t included last time…
I have been trying not to think about it too much, because it makes me incredibly sad for an incredibly beautiful reason.

A couple weeks ago I started out to write this, and abandoned it before its end. With me, that is always a guarantee that whatever made it onto the paper will never be returned to or finished. I have to re-write whatever it was from start to finish. I can’t stop in the middle of something important and pause the force of energy that powers what is being written. And if I do stop somewhere along the way, the heartbeat of the story being told fades out like a song as it draws to a close. It is impossible for me to know what I woud have written next, if I try to pick up where I left off. Because I can’t hear the rhythm of the current that was cut off. just doesn’t work. at least not for me. so I can’t use what I started to write…

alright…it’s time to come out with it. here it is…

Rick is gone. gone as in relocated to New Mexico, which might as well be on the other side of the fucking planet. he’s been gone for a little over a month, and I have missed him each day since he got on that greyhound bus while I was sleeping at the motel 6. Marcus had been hanging out with us there that day, and had passed out on the bed while Rick was packing. and then eventually, I passed out myself. I don’t really remember the last few moments of awareness that come right as you fall into sleep itself, so that usually means that I was very tired. well when I finally woke up (feeling like shit, I remember) Marcus was awake, and Rick wasn’t in the room. I asked where he was, and he told me that he had taken my car and given him a ride downtown, to buy his bus ticket and that he was gone. I knew that he was going to buy it that day, but I guess I hadn’t realized that meant he was actually leaving on the same day. I would say that it made things worse because I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye, but that wouldn’t be the truth. I know he did it to spare us both of having to say it, and I thank him for it. It would have been too difficult. I’m glad that he and I have almost always been on the same wavelength. I think it’s a very big part of our friendship, our bond, or whatever you want to call it. I don’t think there is a term for it, personally. It is highly unique. And as it tends to be, because of the rarity of relationships like ours, they are precious in ways impossible to turn into words. it isn’t something that can be told, like a story, to anyone outside of it. those who experience energies like these are the only ones that ‘know’ them as a result of being a part of it.

so anyhow…coincidentially, he is working at a motel 6 down there. heh. I will never forget anything from the time we spent staying together at the motel 6 in troutdale, and a couple of times switching to the 92nd and stark location. when we had to get out of the apartment because of a bunch-of-bullshit eviction, I had led the way to the motel in my little escort wagon, and rick followed right behind in my piece of shit van. the entire van was literally filled to the top with boxes and rick’s belongings. everything but the driver’s seat, and even that was on the verge of being obscured in the labyrinth of all that we had room for. what he had left to take that the van couldn’t hold, I had in the back of my wagon, along with my own stuff. but I never have much, since I have never settled in somewhere of my own, and my place to stay has never really stayed the same for very long either. I have jumped around a lot. Or drifted, which is how I usually phrase it. when I moved to portland two years ago, all I came here with was one big black suitcase full of mostly clothes, that I had borrowed from my grandparents when I had flown out to Missouri the second time. I still have it today, and it has gone everywhere with me. It is actually kind of sentimental in a weird way. It is a tangible representation of famililarity. unlike a couple years ago, it no longer holds everything that I drag around with me from place to place, in a different car just about every time. now I have a few big travel bags that go along with it, mostly just clothes as well. I really don’t own much of anything other than clothes, which I am constantly as a method of avoiding having to do laundry, as ridiculous as that sounds. so I guess in some ways, I am still a creature with very little material needs or strong desires, or I guess I just don’t require much. low-maintenance, that’s what I mean. not all the time, or in all matters. but overall, I would consider myself more low-maintenance than the average person. hell, what the fuck do I know about anyone ‘average’? nevermind. know the fuck knows.

Okay, we’re starting a new paragraph because I had started going off on a tangent trail there for a second, and I don’t want to stray too far from the path. god, there were so many times when Rick and I were together, and did nothing but go from one tangent trail to the next, for hours and hours, talking excitedly about a million different things, but never managing to arrive at whatever original thought had provoked the conversation, and whatever it was became lost as handfuls of other thoughts crowded each of our minds, waiting in line outside the rave club that was always booming inside my head and that was always overflowing, chaotic, and wishing it could hold more of them long enough to keep them all. I thought our tangent trails were fucking awesome. sometimes we reached a level of absurdity that obliterated being able to speak and instead all we could do was laugh at each other, or ourselves, in acknowledgment of how comical or ridiculous we were being. I love the way he breaks out into the smile that he does after I say something funny. I remember it perfectly. the details, exactly what it looks like. it is fresh in my mind right now, and that’s fairly impressive since I haven’t seen him in over a month and my mind’s visual memory space deteriorates into nothing at an alarming rate. it always has. normally I would be struggling to remember the way someone had looked at any given time, especially if I hadn’t seen them in a while. it was really priceless. I think a lot of the times when I was talking with him, I would concentrate a good deal of energy into cracking witty jokes at the right times, because I wanted to see him laugh. there was just something very…pure, or even innocent in some sort of way, about the particular smile that I got out of him right after something I said, and I recognized it easily as being the introduction to his laughter that always followed it up.

I have’t let a single person take even one photograph of me since the last one that Rick took before leaving. I don’t think he understands that I can’t replace him. I can’t force the comfort that I felt when he held the camera and took one picture after another as I did whatever I was doing, no matter what it was. he took them while we talked sometimes, unconcerned about trying to apply any sort of structure to the pictures, and without worrying about what the end result would end up being. it was very natural, the way he took the pictures. it was brilliant. I was totally relaxed, in a way that I don’t think I have ever been with another person, even when they weren’t photographing me. it kind of blows my mind realizing that. I cant imagine just carrying on with conversation, or walking around the house, or tweaking on my computer while someone took pictures of me as I was doing it. I would be freaked out and unable to function. I would only be able to focus on what they were doing, and be worried about what I should be doing.

I have spoken with him a few times on the phone, and we have made plans for me to come visit him there for a little while. we were going to do it this month, but I had an idea that was worth waiting for, which I presented him with last night when I called him, and which he totally agreed we should do. I am going to go there for my birthday. I pointed out how close it was, and reminded him that he has taken pictures of me on my birthday for the last two years. we have a set of photos dated October 2nd 2005 and another one taken October 2nd 2006…and it is really important to me that there be a set for October 2nd 2007. more important than I understand well enough to relate to someone reading this. I feel like it has to happen. like I need it to happen, or I will not be okay in some way. whatever that way is, I don’t want to find out. I just want to be with my best friend on my birthday again this year, and I am so lucky to have had him with me for my 18th and 19th. I am unbelivably fortunate to have known him at all. he is more important to me than anyone else, and that’s the truth. my grandparents, my little sister, kevin, my mom (in some fucked up sort of abandoned way), marcus, shea lynn, and a list of others are all of great importance to me, and I care immensely for each of them. but it’s just different than any of the relationships I have with those I love. so different that I don’t understand it. I know why it’s so difficult to catergorize or define, or compare to something else, and I know why it leaves me in a kind of awe that has no language. I know why it feels and appears to be a very vague mystery. it kind of is. but I have a name for it, and I have called it by this name for quite a while, it is one of my favorite words and its meaning is a topic which I have admired and devoted a great deal of thought to in my life thus far, and a theme which has stayed with me as time has continued. it’s name is: transcendence. it’s something we don’t know very much about. but sometimes, we are exposed to it in relatively small doses and it is no surprise that we don’t know what in the hell to think of it.

well this energy that exists between me and rick is a real-life story of such a case, where two people are given a dose of true transcendence.

I feel like this is the end of this entry. there is so much more to remember and to preserve with words, a vault full of memories from the last couple of years since we met. I will tell more of our stories in the future, and I know that there will be countless other references to the things I have learned from my relationship with him, things I have felt because of it, ideas that have been inspried by it, inside jokes that don’t make sense outside of it, and all of the rest of it too.

Rick, if you’re reading this please just know how much I will always love you. Thank you. For everything. Because everything is exactly what you gave me.

-ash

Okay, so here it is…I’ve been waiting for this, or something like it, for a long time…

So I’m not at Rick’s anymore. He finally went psychotic and almost scared me yesterday. He’s seriously disgusting and has some fucking issues that I can’t even begin to relate to or understand. I guess I always knew that he had the potential to be the type of freak that he is, especially considering the whole week-long trip he went on when he accused me of some bizarre shit about stealing his credit card or something, a while back. Anyhow. He is such a pussy that he can’t even talk to me about anything face-to-face. Instead, he would write me emails…while I’m right there, in the same fucking apartment as him! It’s so fucking childish and stupid! Or the other day before I left, he sent me text messages from the other room! Fucking pathetic. He was all bent out of shape because he wanted to fuck and had paid me in advance, and then it had been put off 1st because of menstruation, 2nd because of a fucking fierce and miserable yeast infection that I had for a few days there, and 3rd because of an appointment I had made at Planned Parenthood to have my exam redone, and I couldn’t do anything for 48 hrs. before. Well, I didn’t end up going to the appointment, but didn’t really decide that until right before. So yeah, totally my fault and he huffs and puffs until he blows himself and blows me right outta his house! Except I was made out to be the big bad wolf, and he was the little piggy. All three of them, hiding in their little house…

So when he started to become enraged, I was sitting on the couch with Bub and my laptop in his living room, and he had come out and was standing in the kitchen interrogating me and getting all huffy over getting off. *eyeroll* And I’m sorry, but I just don’t have any tolerance for that sort of thing. None. It makes me hate someone. I hate people who hold getting off, or drugs, or anything stupid like that, as the most important thing in the world. It’s pathetic. I look down upon it. Ugh…so anyways, I had no problem whatsoever making it very clear that I did not care about whether or not he came, for fuck’s sake. It was not important to me. It was unreal to me how fucking mad he was getting about his fucking dick that he can’t even seem to pay anyone to touch at all…maybe if he wasn’t a fucking socially inept fucking loser that couldn’t ask you something to your fucking face, he’d have a chance. But probably not then either. So then he goes right into his old tired ‘you fucked me over’ bull shit, since he had paid in advance. So I told him he could have his money back, and threw it at him. Then he still claimed that I fucked him over. I demanded to know how the fuck that was, if I had just given him his cash back. He was just being a stupid fucking nigger trick. Yeah, that’s right. A nigger trick. That’s what his new name his. The Nigger Trick named Rick. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, former trick that is. Won’t be seeing me ever again. So then he said he didn’t want his money back, and he started to walk towards me from the kitchen into the living room, like he was coming at me. I saw him reach for his gun, which I know he always has on him. He didn’t pull it, but he reached for it and had his hand on it for a suspenseful second. As he got closer, he was saying ‘I want you to suck my dick, bitch.’ Fuck that would-be nigger trick. Ha, ha. I love it that Trick and Rick go so well together. They should make that a candy too, like Mike and Ike’s. Ricks and Tricks. Ha, ha, ha. So after that and some more bitching, he finally went into the restroom for a moment. It was long enough to grab my shoes, coat, and Bub and go outside. I texted Ben and he was on his way over, while I waited for him on the stairs in the apartment building right next to Rick’s. While I was waiting for Ben to show up, I was attacked by a couple of fucking Mormon’s or some shit on the staircase, who came out of one of the apartments on the second of the three floors. So I ended up with a Jesus DVD too! I’m sure it will be so very revealing and new! I’m sure that I’ll give it to Bub as a toy to chew all to hell, since he does everything else and it might as well be something deserved of being destroyed…

So now I’m at Ben’s. We looked at cars today, and I got one aleady. It’s an 1989 Volkswagon Fox. It’s not too bad. I need to clean out the interior bad. Vaccuum and all that, REALLY well. Outside looks pretty decent. Just needs a couple of minor things tweaked before it is ready to go for a while. Ben is going to take care of that here in the next couple of days or so. I’m pumped. I needed a car so bad right now. More than ever.

God, I’m tired. I’m really tired. It just hit me. I’m fading out at the computer on Ben’s couch with Bub sleeping next to me. I guess it’s naptime. Can’t really get high since Marcus and I got into a huge fight a few days ago now, and I fucked myself out of my way to get high.

Anyways, literally falling alseep now so I gotta go…more to come!