Je t'aime.

I remember Safka’s voice working as a wool blanket, what with its texture something mountainous and full to the brim with an arctic chill that softened in a elaborate dry spell. My bedroom was that of a lagoon-ish hut then, with magazine clippings on the walls, as well as odd artifacts, claiming me wild. On the space beside one window, there was a large poster-sized sheet of paper, with ideas for a novel I was going to write, but never did. Next to that poster, were special tablets from a friend, with lists on how to live “experimental”. 

The best additive however, was that of a world map situated on the ceiling, with circles locating where friends or various family members lived. Question marks distinguished rare places I thought I had the capability of traveling to soon, and large exclamation points, guarded all those cities, that I had visited in just the last two years. In the corner of the map in big large letters, was the Dylan song lyric: “He not being busy born, is busy dying.” It was my psalm.

Next door my brother was readily cataloguing his Star Trek collection and dusting his magic wands. I was twenty years old and living in my parent’s guest bedroom, as some sort of troubadour that liked performing on stage at the local art theaters and befriending various gypsies three times my age. I worked a day job that I hated. There was also the constant problem of the externals. When people would meet up with me for the first time, they’d look all aghast at my nymphet looking face. “Oh baby, oh darling! You’re so little!”

There was a brief Diane Cluck obsession, with which I thought her song Telepathic Desert, was some sort of totem of self-truth. It all seemed to parallel that of the relationship I had existing for a boy. It all seemed to explain the constant disconnect found everywhere. It was some sort of eccentric declaration of pain. I also had questioned my sexuality for a brief period then, finding myself more and more curious about the female body, and sitting in my bedroom for hours, drawing up erotic pictures of breasts and bush. What I realized quickly though, is that with the obsession, there usually sparked a large level of jealousy towards those, with facial elements that I seemingly would never possess. The feeling was merely a dirty sort of thirst, and with men, it always intensified. It was with them, that I liked the challenge better. Music was an easy way of channeling all the passion I had towards all else. 

In May I quit my job and drank the juice of poetry for a month, while preparing myself for a new life as a traveler. A month later, I had spent three weeks on a farm, relating myself to a man that said he was my father, but would only ever be seen as a friend. Likewise, by July, I had bought a ticket to New York, and was sitting on the static of time. One afternoon, I decided to call Diane.

Diane was in her mid-sixties, but had the personality of a teenager. In fact, it was in her nature to get incredibly depressed, but she was always able to kick out of that, and deliver a laugh that would make your stomach curl in a good way. I worked with her for a year, in a department store that proved to be loony. She was living with her ex-husband who wouldn’t ever agree to legally divorce her. Likewise, her mother had just died and her hubby was always stoned and drunk. She lived for her dogs and her garden. What I liked best, is when she’d sneak me candy and quickly say, “Put some meat on those bones, honey. You and me, we need to be pretty for the ghosts in our head.”

I had gone two months without talking to her at all, so I dialed her number and waited excitedly for her to answer. And then there, she was. Her voice was something whispery this time though. She was just as high spirited, however. 

In that conversation, she revealed the following:

1. On the Friday previous, she had rode a bike into a ditch and broke a rib and got bruised all over. After getting knocked out, she woke up shortly after, and DROVE HERSELF to the hospital. She was now experiencing great back pain.

2. Her husband found out he had kidney failure and was extremely close to death. Although she wasn’t in love with him anymore and their partnership was broken, she felt obligated to stay and help him with his tragic illness. 

4. There had once been a coast guard gentleman that worked at the boat dock near her house, that had helped her in her garden one day, and she had mentioned that he hadn’t been sighted in months. —“I think he probably got married and engaged or something. And it’s upsetting, you know? I didn’t want to be his partner or anything, but I would have really liked to be his friend.”

5. “Everyone misses you at work. People are always asking me if I heard anything from “little Alyssa”. It’s adorable. You are well-loved, my dear.”