3 posts tagged “seth”
i find myself and others talking more about his death than his life. it's a tendency that we have to dwell on the most tragic nuances. as though his death wasn't, in fact, part of his life.
he was a good man, or rather he tried very hard to be to me. it wasn't truly in his nature to be one of those men who opened doors for you or who took you out to a nice restaurant for valentine's day. we shared packs of cigarettes and snuck into indie films up the street. that was just our way. i never cared for the romance that others packaged and sold. i just wanted to have a bit of fun with my best friend. after all, that's what he was first and foremost. he was my best friend. he was the best at being my friend, my companion, my storyteller, and my bean.
in the same manner that he tried to be a traditional boyfriend to me, i tried very hard to be enough for him. that was all i ever wanted was to be enough for him. eventually, it would be ok that he needed all of life and worldly worlds to satisfy him. we eventually would laugh at his hunger.
i've filed away so many of those moments ... those choice words. i fear i'd need to be hypnotized to bring his smile back now, but it's for the better. i don't know that my heart could handle the weight of his face, the sound of his breath, or the turn of his glare ever again. it's only a false promise. it's only me missing my friend.
that's how i describe it now. i turn to my husband, and whispering over our newborn's head in the dark of night, three in the morning, five or one, i simply say, "honey, i miss my friend." he slips his hand into mine, and he says, "i know."
it can't get any worse you see than how we miss him. my husband, he misses him for me. our family, we miss him for each other and for the people that never knew his heated words, his serrated laugh.
five years ago, i could have told you that i would love again, i would marry, i would have this babe who sleeps so well against my heart. but five years ago, i could have never told you that the pain was just as fierce, that nothing would have truly changed, and that it still seems like yesterday that i said goodbye.
we talk about his death as an event all on its own when truly it is part of his life. it is the part in which he fought his fight and won in the only way he knew how, by saying, "fuck it, i'm having a smoke."
and desperately listening with an intent i knew nothing about.
driving to work and 'eve of destruction' came on a radio station that i never listen to and i never would listen to except it is randomly programmed as button number five and who am i to say 'no' to the fates that program my radio stations and so when there was nothing but commercials, i flipped to that ominous number five and there was eve of destruction and me saying, i think i know this song, when truly seth used to claim that he would sing that song when it was just him and a guitar and piles of abandoned cars at the essential end of the world and so he practiced it constantly in new orleans while chainsmoking on our roof and drinking a beer while i would sit next to him scribbling away in my notebook with a whiskey and a cigarette and somehow this is what our relationship could be all-encompassed to was two people who were chosen to 'be' together, separate, and next to each other at a certain point in time with few to no pretenses and very little money.
i just miss his smile sometimes.
it's hard when i can only remember that there was a time in my life when i knew a boy who i loved very deeply as my best friend and my inspiration. i can't remember the things i said in conversation or what we talked about, but that we had fun and smart witticisms to cover the long days. i don't remember the t-shirts i wore to mardi gras or the bracelets i took off every night, but i remember i was a punker and i had this punk rock boy. i don't remember his jokes, but i remember how he looked when he smiled.
so have i suffered some great injustice, or have i made out like a bandit?
either way, today, at this time, four years ago, he left our world in pursuit of a new one. and he can't be defined or held down, but damn if he doesn't reek havoc with my memory.
i hope you're somewhere warm, bean.
