notes to my love.
I remember right where you were sitting. Your legs crossed, feet tucked between the cushions of your new found comfort zone. Although only hours had passed since you checked in at the front desk, I had never seen anyone fall into such a calm center in what was a very transient lobby of a travelers paradise. The words on the page you were reading seemed to me so compelling from your intense look of intent to get through another page. I studied the forms of the room of gray passers by and Victorian indoor design, you caught my eye as you turned the page and I instantly was shy to your presence, I looked away and walked as if I had somewhere to be. Waiting for the elevator doors to recede to welcome me in, within my mind I saw a masterpiece of oils and canvas and you were nestled between the fire and a book, I noted Your feet up with bent knees, warmed by the heat of the subtle remnants of what was a vibrant flame. Daydreaming of us ending our day at the same lodge for a late night snack and an aperitif. Your elegant disposition had me at an almost dizzy loft, a goodbye to my ego, obsessions, and obstacles. There was nothing I couldn’t accomplish with you by my side. I wake abruptly from my daydream and you are speaking with a hotel employee. His veering in my direction indicated an order from you to take note of that individual, meaning me. My easy feeling instantly turned to nausea and panic for what was being perceived of me as the gentleman turns directly toward me and approaches, Thinking it is going be a bad interaction, leading to an escort out of the hotel, I take a defensive mental stance which was instantly squashed with no words from the gentleman and a simple hand extension with a piece of paper in it that smells like, what I find out hours later to be your neck, the enticing fragrance of fulfillment, with six words and an initial written to me “I want to meet you NOW!” Mary j.. I had landed on cloud 9 where your nine lives died.

Instantly taken of breath, with no compromise in my step I race to meet you. As you raised your legs to invite me under them I knew my life had changed for ever and I will never be alone again. Our spirits together forever began to make sense instantaneously with the not so subtle urgency for my influence. From first touch of our connected eyes I was in love.
There we were 30 some odd years ago not having the slightest idea that mortality would be the only barrier that separates us living in each other You still live in me and are a recognizable influence by my mother. She scolded me with, “You never would have reacted to that that way before Mary J..” I hated having to say goodbye, sadness only rising as the carbon monoxide of my tailpipe was a faint wafted aroma to my mothers front porch. Not similar to the smell of the porch when she kicked me out onto the couch of my closest friend when I was sixteen.
With an adopted name, and address., I rose to the occasion then, and I believed in myself for once and was welcomed instantly into the comfortably challenging sedated state of eternally in love with you. Now an unmistakably real memory of me taking your last breath upon your direction comes to mind… to never having you by my side again…. I’m now posed with a similar beginning as then with a new identity to begin and am a new nationality away from freedom.
She’s gone and I’m on the run.
The circumstances were discarded and a first degree pre meditated charge had been placed to my name. I had no remorse for what I had done because it was placed to me as an honor. To be celibate in a prison cell for my bodies days made worth while with sight of you as a promise when I reach the bright white light was never a part of our plan.
I was on the run. It was an easy process to acquire a new social security number, residence and credit cards. So once bail was set and paid. The first step was to grow a five days beard and leave the country under my newly adopted identity.
Only a faint memory of our blissful union now live in my conscious mind. I see you in my dreams only followed by an abrupt beginning to another new day. My new day is usually accompanied with a frigid cold sweat dripping from my pasty white brow and the memory of a moment with you. To think that this is where It would all end up. You died at my hand. Although your repetitive requests for euthanasia holding the key to us having everlasting eternal life together had some seemingly sane psychology to it. I now live with a self inflicted understanding of my metaphoric internal death, by assisting in suicide or killing you, a piece of myself that lived through you died. So much of me lived through you. Dreams, Perceptions, Stability, Comfort, ease of my mind was provided by the way you smiled

Our Starboard
That first night was magic. Like winning a Super Lotto drawing or picking a number on a roulette wheel when the stakes were down. You became a lucky charm to me. While speaking of pursuit of dreams we mapped a galaxy of our very own. With my lawn style foldable loveseat, a picnic basket with cheese, grapes, asparagus, crackers, and wine. This starboard, from the edge of the ocean the sky was reflected and amplified by the seas shimmer, it could have guided Magellan back from the grave. A crystal clear evening with the Milky Way. Enough stars shooting to fulfill all of life’s wishes. That was the night, the clarity of the universe and the universe I wanted to create for myself and those around me was made clear crystal clear, my stars were aligned and then it was clear sailing. Never to have another day without you. We apparently were the first to accomplish this since Paul McCartney and Linda, it is said that from the day they were married they never went a day without seeing each other until she passed away. As a dedication to our bond that same vow change my entrance to all of my most challenging rooms. To ease my way into foreign social circumstance with you as a pleasant buffer to anyone’s first impression of me was no longer a tangible concept. I had once again tunneled my way into the oblivion of anonymous and thoughts of you and these writings are the only thing that gets me through each and every day.

Missing You
These past few days I’ve missed you a lot. Not much of an exchange, you’re not here anymore, knowing for the rest of my life I will have to constantly look over my shoulder to see if someone has randomly tracked me down or found out my real identity from my covered fairly well paper trail to my new identity. Even though I believe I heard the words repeatedly from your lips, “Kill me out of your love for me. My debilitating disease has me at my wits end.” the reports I heard on the radio broadcast about me said I was “borderline” according to our parents. Which isn’t that unruly of an interpretation of me from what I know our parents truly known of me and my character. “It may have been a delusion” is what your brother was quoted as saying. I think he’s selling me out for the likes of 750,000 american. Selling a headline for his security later, it isn’t a bad gig. Seeing that not even he knows who I am or where I’m residing…the power goes to him.
You know I had to run across borders for my own safety right. Alone and incarcerated was never a part of the plan. I finally have the time to pursue what I want and you’re not here to play any role in that. I think my one on one writings to you since you or we killed your body have opened me volumes yet I miss the feeling of the genuine touch of you as a live being. It would be neat if I could use you as a voice in a ventriloquist act. I do such a good impression of you that that dream can only live in my mind in case of public attraction to our act. The attraction to the search for another soul mate is on it is pulling me further from the us that once was.

Trying a new beginning.
I’ve tried to at this point to write as if you were not here but I was writing you at a time I should have written you in the past now I’ve decided that you are still here by my side. Those who claim they can see your presence I call my friend.
I’ve joined an anonymous caravan of pedests. Like a pack of dogs who’ve learned to walk upright and echoed a bit of the hippest jargon. We were always sweeping the same neighborhood because they know that’s where the meat always will be.
As you probably know I’m a bit of an ease into change type of guy unless I’m struck by something breathtaking. A Landscape, Sun sinking into the ocean, a cast shadow of your silhouette on brick wall, or the west of the canyon from behind Vishnu, or a compelling addition to any of the conspiracies I may be apart of. I need to be swept away again to believe in living again. Ironically unless a friend or my mind or body provide necessity for my obsessions they are on hiatus.

Let’s Take a Trip Together
A portal into my mind the day after our lives were intertwined is where I hide right now as I write you. Do you remember that first trip? A sick call to work and instantly a getaway . The details of that day are crystal clear to me. With an overnight bag filled with a lifetime of supplies, you dressed yourself for all occasion elegantly simple. You were dressed with varying layers of comfortabilty not knowing what I had up my sleeve. From summer dress to ski bib in a tightly packed for travel hemp bag is all that we needed to lift onto the back of the Pathfinder, simple clothes, brushes for teeth and hair, nail clippers, pumice stones, elbow grease, a first aid kit …and we were off, about to take the 17 toward a red rock winter escapade. “Da Pathfinder” packed comfortable enough to sleep 2 with a futon mattress a bunch of blankets and pillows a personal sized iglootm with some Whole Foodstm sushi rolls, a couple of Naked Juicetm smoothies and one apple. All on plastic encased ice blocks to maintain a dry cool environment for our goodies. I said,“a couple of stops are necessary, a stop to the local medicine man we picked up a couple of spleefs, and then to the gas station for some water, a bottle of red accenting the sushi, a full tank of gas and some coffee for the long journey. The open road, the music of a 15 gig ipodtm, and the comfort of finding and being with the other half of me I’d been subconsciously searching for. I was singing,“Lets Take a Trip together” to myself, a morphine song that I know to heart if its on. The lyrics start out “Lets take a trip together headlong into the irresistible orbit. Get to finally, get to finally, get to finally, get to know each other.” I sing aloud as I turn the key to initiate the beginning of this journey. I heard the song louder inside my head than the words that flew from your mouth over and through the car while we entered the car together, that is why I said, “what?” as we both centered ourselves in our seats for the ride. You said, “never mind if you didn’t hear it then, you weren’t meant to hear my eloquence.” A moment had slipped away before but this one really hurt because I wanted to remember everything you ever say to me and especially on this trip for our sudden life altering getaway for reckless abandon.
With the sun slowly arcing to the western sky, we floated as a cloud through the rolling hills and jagged protrusions of the high desert. From plate collisions these protrusions had been faded and softened by mother nature into peculiar shapes from what must have looked quite rigid when they first elevated to standing to be seen or be affected by natures forces, rounded edges and their subtle phenomenon welcomed an informative conversation of the evolution of this desert. Seeing you knew so much of the general geology of this desert dating to when much of this barren wasteland had been under water. I was floored with enthusiasm. Dumbfounded I proceeded to get lost in enveloping every word. Although in the rearview I could see the corner of your mouth and its participation in forming all the words, I had trouble reading your lips so I had to rely on hearing solely to record every moment in my now tattered mind space. The daydreaming led me to tailgate a big rig and you said,“ You apparently can’t multi task very well…Do you want a piece gum?” then you proceeded to slouch in your seat with the look that I understood to be a sarcastic shot at me…in my mind, from your voice I heard, “ you can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time let alone talk and drive” … I sometimes get lost in the moment and me not being able to be in your presence without wanting to engross all your senses and feel what your feeling literally and figuratively, at this moment it made me come up to close to a big rig… and your sense of humor made me laugh, a clever shot out of the blue to open a whole new game of verbally provoking clever harmless banter for us to flirt around. I remember I lightly grabbed or lightly pinched your forearm, I can’t remember which, with a smile and said, “you’re funny.” as if you had just watched the Karate Kid you sanded the floor into grabbing my wrist and spoke firmly as the back of my wrist was sending the realization to my mind that this was the first time the familiar tactility of my wrist flesh had ever touched your bosom, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t invade my personal space.” you said sternly, with another sarcastic look, the same look as before and then a sudden scream to the windshield with your hands up screaming, “LOOK OUT!!!! TRUCK!” Only a joke, we were in no danger of hitting that truck in that moment or the moment before. I knew you loved seeing me flustered. From there on out it was on, everything uncensored and fearless a game of verbal ping pong, a quest to see whom was the more cunning linguist. I wish I could have that life back.

I Found My Center Living in You.
You had all the right questions and lead by example. As time elapsed I drifted more toward your intuition of certain situations, better someone else making the objective choice rather then letting the decision lay on my shoulders… If I didn’t do something I said I would, I still want to do it but I realize what ever has not been manifested only lives as an idea without the breath of conspiracy for fuel. Sort of like the time you influenced me to write when I was having a creative lull. You asked me, “Have you ever just started writing and felt you had something?! Something Bigger than you?!!!” “I still hear you’re echoing timbre in regards to zest for life coming from a constant nurturing of an inner fire, you must stoke the fire because tomorrow may turn stormy.” So I wrote and now years later I still write. The lesson of living life with the inspiration of morning coming came from waking with you in my arms I would open my eyes with no objection to this mornings daylight. From waking breath. My mind set on real moments, real completions, and real manifestations focused me to our successful entrance into the marketplace you chose. I was very excited with your influence to cash out on my ideas. Before you I was ready to cash out on my dedication to me succeeding in generating a creative livelihood. The fact that you’re not here I’m falling forward into all of those decisions you would make because my scale is not calibrated correctly. With you by my side I was best. I could look into your eyes and all of your body language included with your articulate solution to best suit us and be instantly convinced that your intuition was our perfect unison verbally and spiritually. No matter if it was on the purchase of some fresh fruit or a percentage for a tip or the amount I should logically give to someone for the production and distribution to one of my lines of goods. There the answers which lived with you as a backbone to, helpful in providing credibility to me, a broken down artist until you rejuvenated me by the presence of you in me. So I constantly reached into you for what a centered person would find in themselves. I told you from the get go, “anyone willing to sincerely commit themselves to me should be committed, and the last thing I need is another crazy voice to add to the collection that already communicate to me constantly.”

©beat back books. 2004