327 Market

Finding love at Hijinks

That was a strange little affair. I knew him less than 24 hours, but he still managed to break my heart. And when it was over, it was over. Once the back cover was drawn, there was no going back. Looking at the pages now, I see the misspellings, the ackward drawing, the places where i should have spent more time rendering. I can hardly capture the feeling I had when I was drawing. Maybe if the pages were projected on the side of a building and standing a few inches away, and all you could see, from one corner of your eye to the other was Omar, then maybe you'd understand. Like seeing a Mark Rothko painting in person, standing as close as you can, and you finally understand what he meant by "orange."

Maybe you had to be with him at 3 AM, holding his hand as he walked down May Avenue. Your brain all soggy and epiphany-prone becuase of the fuzzy salsa and the lack of sleep. Feeling his anguish when he sees his empty house. His dreams were your dreams, his losses, your loss. And all the Emotions in Capital Letters, intense and irrational like they were when you were 23 (and you hadn't figured out that they were cliche). When you Knew how to Feel things. When Feeling meant Being Alive.

but he didn't know you where there with him. In the forest, too. he thought he was alone. When you lovingly drew the leaves that covered his poor, passed-out body, he thought he was lost. But you knew he was at the base of Montara Mountain, in the little faerie-glade at the tiny creek that disappears into the culvert to empty into the ocean.

And the endless waiting. and the confinement. you knew what it was like, but there was nothing you could do to alleviate it. and the doctors touching you with belatex'd fingers, trying to run away on your bike, but not ever really getting anywhere.

how knowing everyone else is alone doesn't at all assuage your lonliness.

then when you tottered out of the forest, an old, sad man. my heart broke, your life was over. there was nothing more for you than to find a quite place to die. Because I couldn't let you go, I had a deadline to meet, my paper darling. I held your head in my lap as I inhaled the breath I gave you. It was just a little puff, and you were gone.