come back, come back my little piece of mind

Today I am mad at you again. Did you have to make your point? You were always so goddamn stubborn. I said you'd fight to the death. Today I was reading Everything is Illuminated. The last chapter I read reminds me of how LitTOC made me feel. I was always the poster child, to you, your crowned goddess, to everyone, to myself. "Love makes it all worth it". It's so simple, so bubbly, I can't even repeat it in my own head without it sounding comically trite and worn. Chris even made those cartoons. Looking back now, all I see is a caricature myself. I don't know anymore. Who or what do I have left to show for it? What was that based on? Some fucked up, emotionally manipulated subservience to a person disguised as an ideal. An ideal, I thought, wouldn't hurt you. But when you slap that ideal like a post-it note to someone's forehead, give it life, give it dreams, give it fears, it's all a minefield. The unconditional forgiveness that drove me into the ground. You were the last good thing left.
In the grass at the airport, I wish I could remember if you were crying. I was blinded by my own fears, my own tears, so goddamn selfish. If you didn't, I know it was the closest you ever got(besides that time in Nashua, when I asked of you the impossible, but this time it was pure agony, no anger, less fear). Why was it worth it? I looked over my shoulder (you crashed into the ground) without regret this time. At least we had the chance, I said. The day she popped your cherry and I laughed, did that break your heart? I'm sorry I told. You'd think if I could know anything, I could at least know myself. I can't even remember what my question is anymore.
I say on that sponge-scrubber green floor and wept over the Truth I found in every bittersweet line of LitTOC. I put my post-its there to tell you how it couldn't be. I hate the way your eyes implored me. Not our usual quiet resignation. I should have known. If you hadn't asked, I might have said yes. Is that wrong? I don't know why I couldn't love you. You faced your greatest fear for me, I now it has become mine. Because I lost you. I lose. You win. Should I have known that there was so much on the table?
We stayed up until 4AM, trying not to yell. Biting that denim comforter to abate my absolute frustration. Like a baby, like now, all I can do is stomp my feet and pound my fists to make you, to make them, understand. "I don't want to love because the day you lose the one you love seems unbearable, to impossible to handle.""But it's worth it! Don't you fucking trust me?" This goddamn sense of guilt. If I had gone, you would be black, immobile, undead. I wish we could talk it out. Our final folly:, we were to each a compass, a mirror, it was always you or me we came to when we had questions of the marrow of it all; but when you are my philosophy how can we possibly discuss this as secular? It doesn't even matter now because you are gone, gone, gone. Beat it. Repeat it. it still rings empty to my ears. I just can't wring the reality, the truth, out of any of these tears. Blackness would be better than this bitter parade of empty little light boxes displaying the faded, flickering projections of my projected, happy life. It goes on without me.

lima oscar victor echo

My love,

That was hard (I'm glad I can still hear you laughing maniacally). I miss you more than I ever thought it was possible to miss someone. I wish that I could have been there. I am scared for when it is my turn. I know it will break my heart. Thank you for leaving me Gabe and Stogie, they've helped me so much. I don't know what I'd do without them. Please let your mom know that you're with her. She's really struggling. She made the most beautiful quilts for Aaron and Brandon out of your shirts. They were so beautiful and so you that they made me cry. She has told me that she is going to make me one out of your t-shirts. I can think of nothing more fitting :) Maybe it will even have some penguins on it. And I will make sure to call each of them by name. I know there's not much I can tell you that you don't already know because I feel you with me and I keep you right here next to my heart. On my worst days, I feel robbed of the most incredible friendship I've ever had, one that I knew I would have for the rest of my life, a space that now feels so empty, but on my best days I am so grateful that I got to spend as much time with you as I did, that you were so impossible to forget, and that you so thoroughly shaped me into the person I am today that you can never really leave me. I miss you like MC Hammer misses the high life.

lima oscar victor echo, your crowned goddess,
Megan

maybe in Paraguay they can find you

untitled

unwind my hand, rewind my days
oh clear the cobwebs, clear the daze

a cold white room all cushioned white
my mind feels trapped; i strain, i fight

not cracks at all i strike the pane
futile attempts-again!again!

the four blank walls give me no heed
no way is out-to you i need

from there to here how i am lost
you're gone, you're gone- come numbing frost.

Hallelujah

Thinking outrageously I write in cursive
I hide in my bed with the lights on the floor
Wearing three layers of coats and leg warmers
I see my own breath on the face of the door

Oh I am not quite sleeping
Oh I am fast in bed
There on the wall in the bedroom creeping
I see a wasp with her wings outstretched

North of Savanna we swim in the palisades
I come out wearing my brother's red hat
There on his shoulder my best friend is bit seven times
He runs washing his face in his hands

Oh how I meant to tease him
Oh how I meant no harm
Touching his back with my hand I kiss him
I see the wasp on the length of my arm

Oh great sights upon this state! Hallelu-
Wonders bright, and rivers, lake. Hallelu-
Trail of Tears and Horseshoe Lake. Hallelu-
trusting things beyond mistake. Hallelu-

We were in love. We were in love.
Palisades! Palisades! Palisades
I can wait. I can wait.

Lamb of God, we sound the horn.
Hallelujah!
To us your ghost is born.
Hallelu-

I can't explain the state that I'm in
The state of my heart, he was my best friend
Into the car, from the back seat
Oh admiration in falling asleep
All of my powers, day after day
I can tell you, we swaggered and swayed
Deep in the tower, the prairies below
I can tell you, but the telling gets old
Terrible sting and terrible storm
I can tell you the day we were born
My friend is gone, he ran away
I can tell you, I love him each day
Though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
I can tell you I love him each day
Terrible sting, terrible storm
I can tell you...

an oreo cake, an apron

a roomfull of laughter
the lightest of hearts
a brush on the shoulder
you’re home ‘round these parts

and now i feel empty and
rootless apart
i don’t know where’s home
there’s nowhere to start

don’t know how to find you
now that you’ve gone
can’t get you back again
so safe in your arms

you’d hold me tight
when i’d shiver and shake
and now i am seizing
you’re lying in wake

i don’t know where you’ve gone
thought you were right here
thought i’d have you forever
when i was too weak to steer

the laughs from your belly
the joy from your soul
i can’t know it again
i will never be whole.

yours is the first face that i saw, think i was blind before i met you

My dearest Gabriel,

When I met you eight years ago, feeding the homeless at the Salvation Army, I was impressed by your knack for conversing with ease with almost anyone you met, including me. I know that you need only to take a quick glance around this room to truly understand the gamut of people that you touched (not literally of course). At any rate, you started the conversation, and as is bound to happen when two heads as hard as ours meet, that conversation never really ended because neither of us could ever concede a point. But I couldn’t be more glad that we never did because our silly debates gave me an excuse to get to know you better.

You had the most unique quality of being simultaneously a 6 year old and a 60 year old. You’re the only high schooler I’ve ever met went to bed promptly at 8 o’clock every night and who, if you couldn’t be flying, wanted nothing more than to sit around in a robe and slippers, smoking your pipe and reading literature. And yet, you had a childlike simplicity about you. You’re the only one I could count on to just sit down with some crayons and color like there was no tomorrow, or to play silly games like Bread and Butter when we walked down the street. You were so full of contradictions and quirks that being with you was at once comforting and familiar, and also wonderfully surprising.

Like your wardrobe, you were dependable; We could always count on you to be wearing a button-down collared shirt and slacks with black socks. We could always rely on you to answer the phone with a cheery “Yayhoyhoy!” and to finish the food from everyone’s plate before the end of every meal. Most of all, you could be depended on to be there for someone in need.

I believe that you experienced the world differently than most. You seemed untainted by conventions of all kinds, in a way that not only made you the very unique individual that we knew, but that also allowed you to see and reach out to others that most people wouldn’t notice. I remember when Kasey convinced you to go to Winter Formal senior year. In typical Gabriel fashion, you agreed to go to the dance so as to not hurt her feelings but you never said you’d agree to dance! Instead, you spent the entirety of the night striking up a conversation with the security guard in the corner, no doubt asking him about his gun. While I simply found this hilarious at the time, I can’t help now but think how much you improved that guy’s night. Wherever we went, you made friends with whoever we encountered, however unlikely. I valued your openness, your willingness to try new things, at least once anyway. In your twenty-one years, you did more than many people do in five times as long.

Since you’ve left me, I’ve experienced a dizzying array of emotions. Though most of the time this all feels so unreal, I must admit, that I have been a little angry with you. You’ve told me a million times that you always wanted to go out flying and it’s just like stubborn old you to get it your way. But I realize that I am just being selfish, something that when it really came down to it, you never were. You never were afraid of death and when I start to get angry or mad or upset over the fact that you were taken from me, it gives me the greatest peace to know that in your last moments, you were not afraid. To the last you were courageous and I am looking to you know to find the courage to make it through without you.

In the hours after your dad told me the news, Gabe 2 and I sat on the floor of my living room and while we did shed our tears, undoubtedly the dominant feature of our gathering was laughter. There were so many little things about you that cannot be replaced or imitated by anyone else, but I cannot help but to smile or laugh when I think of them. The same occurred when we went to visit your family. I don’t think I could ever have imagined such joy and laughter in a household so recently touched by tragedy. But that was your nature, you faced the hard truths of life without fear and you brought so much laughter and joy to us all that it is impossible for you to ever truly leave us.

This week I was supposed to coach a volleyball camp with some good friends. I didn’t know what to do. I really just wanted to be with people who were close to you. I felt bad about going on as if nothing had happened. But to my great surprise, it was there, when I was doing what I loved most, that I felt most strongly your distinct presence. In doing what you did best, pursuing your dreams and doing what you loved, I still have you in the most profound way I could imagine.

Gabe, though you are gone from this world, I feel your indelible presence in my hearts. As you once told me “I’ll miss you like MC Hammer misses the high life”. I know that this is not goodbye forever, it’s just goodbye for now. You were always the kind of friend that no matter how long we were apart, we’d fit back together again like there was hardly a day in between. So until then,

Lima Oscar Victor Echo forever and always yours,

Megan