Retreat!  My mind shouted; find the yearbook . . . where the hell is your picture  — how does the alphabet go?  Okay, page eighty-two, and there you are   — so you — it sears my eyes.  What a shame this yearbook got moldy resting in that damp drawer — overwhelmingly musty — odor is a smell of past, a scent of things forgotten  .  .  . funny, only 1983 was damaged — though not ruined.  Yes, I see your comfortable smart ass grin, one hand nonchalantly resting against the tree and the other, though cut off from view, must be in your pocket.   You always said it was worth all the crap going to school here because the Senior pictures were taken outside, instead of in a studio with fake poses and dress clothes.  The photos portrayed us — not who we were expected to be.  As if you had your priorities straight.  Who knew where we were going?  Did any teacher; did any friend have an idea?  We didn't — we don't.  You were always Mister Casual; had it all, didn't you?  Just a shake of your head fanning out the blond tones in your light brown hair — coupled with that trademark grin — was there anything out of reach?  Then again, as kids we all felt special, yeah, blessed individual entities: Life was to be all ours; we felt it as a right.  We lived our lives as if every tomorrow were some mythological fantasy that only became fact when the grey began to form each morning.  The fervor of the night would occasionally claim a fatality, a sacrificial symbol that we did indeed walk along a precipice — also confirming the fact that we were mortal and life should be savored.  But by whom?  Us?  Wasn't the craziness really living life?

        How many times did I drive so drunk I couldn't walk after Roscoe killed Linda?  Oh yeah — and what about you?  Jim Turbs and Dominic's little brother never knew they wouldn't make the corner before Bower's Town Bridge that night . . . Jodi seemed proud that they crashed after they left her place . . . I haven't talked to Sue in years; weren't we best friends when her brother Bob and Tom Day hit that tree?  Bob always called me Crash for getting into so many accidents.  That's irony for you.  Why are so many friends dead?  When I think back, I just don't understand our disbelief of effects — especially after watching the suffering of those left behind — our suffering.  When did time begin to change us?  Bit by bit high speed car wrecks became a thing of the past — for you and I anyway.  We now craved safety, though everyone still drank and smoked and now did cocaine or stuff.  That was different because we were adults and we had to work to play.  Some of us escaped the cycle though, feeling we had achieved the best degree of safety possible by looking around us for a change and yes — thinking of consequences.  The problem is we're human and we're animals  — we're never safe from suffocating darkness.  Laughing at the rest of them — look at their denial!  We've risen above those ruts so we're in better shape, right? Fools, only eight years after the glitz of graduation you must give up your future with absolute finality.

        We had such a great time in high school, sometimes.  You kissed Elyse and I kissed Scott behind the bus garage and I hated Elyse for touching you and I tried to pretend that Scott was you but it didn't work because he smelled and tasted like chewing tobacco.  Do you remember walking on your hands the whole length of the hall next to wood-shop?  I know you couldn't have forgotten the time that you walked on your hands after dipping them in slip clay so you could leave an interesting trail.  There they were, gray crusty hand-prints floating on the stale green of the carpet.  I held the vat of slip clay willingly as you inked your hands up; seeing those prints meant we were bonded in a way no one ever was before, but they really symbolized that we were there — we were us — we were a team.  Yes, we caught hell for that incident, but that was nothing compared to some of the other things we all did and were never caught for.  Why were we so proud that Craig and I drank beer on the bus heading toward school?  How sad that children needed self-destruction to feel empowered — we haven't changed have we?  Now Craig is considered a statistic as well . . . he was the first boy I ever loved and that sounds so cliché that I want to choke because it was so much more!  Why does language desert me at times like this?  I remember lying on Craig's bed, looking out the window . . . I saw the trailer I lived in and wished this was my bed and I could look out and feel so comfortable and so alive and now he's dead too.  Damn snowmobile.  Damn tree.  Damn Craig.  You were at Geradu's party, remember I was seeing Kurt?  Kurt ignored me all day when we were hanging out in front of Sal's, sipping on beers when we were sure the town cops weren't cruising down Main Street . . . when all of us piled into the back of your truck to go to the party Kurt rode shotgun up front with you while I was in the back . . . later you laughed when Kurt asked me to go upstairs with him and I said “Fuck You” . . . I always wondered why you laughed, or what you were really laughing at.  Were you laughing at Kurt because I wouldn't sleep with him as a guy thing or did you laugh because I was a strong woman who always stood out, and up?  We weren't close then and thinking back I have to wonder if there was a slight look of despair when Craig asked me to go upstairs with him and I immediately, without thought, said “Sure”.  Did you laugh when Mike snuck into his bedroom with his camera to snap pictures of Craig and I having sex?  Did you understand that there was an innate need for me to be with Craig, a need as tangible as biting through ropes that strangle circulation?  I hope you did.  I was pretty pissed off to find out that Kurt bet Craig the money that was in his pocket that he could get me upstairs.  Wasn't it three dollars and change?  Then I hugged myself when they told me Craig gave the money back to Kurt as soon as he went back downstairs.  How can love like that die?  I don't mean Craig being with Sharon — I loved her too!  I never felt jealous of them being together and used to scream at Craig when he did stupid things that hurt her . . . people used to say we were going to kill each other someday but we had no animosity — we just seemed to share an overwhelming connection that had nothing to do with possession.  I knew I couldn’t posses him and was pretty sure I didn't want to . . . knowing that Craig was Craig but also thinking of Sharon . . . yes, you know Sharon was as much a part of my life as Craig and now every day she'll watch Luke grow up without Craig.  You were as integral too although we never discussed it . . . we always made sure our walls were solid enough to resist attacks of genuine intimacy — even when it was ourselves waging the battle against the interior wall.

        I spray painted my name under the baseball field and you focused the light into my eyes until I was blinded and you had to sit with me until I could see again.  Were you afraid for me when Chris kidnaped me from that party up at Chicken Farm?  You knew I was tanked.  You knew they would try to have sex with me.  No one knew I would jump out of the car, me included.  How did you feel when you saw the bruises?  Were you angry at them?  Me?  Yourself?  I always envied your ability to walk on your hands  — it made you you . . . displacing convention . . . you were so tall, so narrow — isn’t that why we called you Wires?  One moment you were walking on your feet, and then I would glance over and see your grubby stretched moccasins where your hair should have been . . . my wrists seemed too weak or maybe it was my lack of balance  — then again it was probably in my mind.  You knew I never sprained my wrists doing handstands in gym class even though I said I did.  I watched you from behind a wall of comradery and I saw you peering back over your wall with the same fears . . . every time you gave me a piggy-back ride I felt as if I were mounted on the proudest intemperate stallion, and I knew I was . . . your dark eyes exuded unconditional freedom, wary of ties — but I felt the way you gently carried me, held my legs at your sides.  I wonder if our friends laughed behind our backs?  Self-mutilation was our credo and we kept ourselves in a constant state of pain and storm . . .

        Do you find it hard to recall even some of the best of times?  Life was full, it was definitely wild so why has my mind let so much slip away?  There are times that all I feel I have left are my memories and if they sneak away or get too hazy to recall — what in the hell will I  have?  Who will I be?  Who was I?  When the last of your life is sucked away by the Cancer, will faded memories be enough to keep me alive?   Will I subconsciously join you though remain bound to this empty hole, a prisoner that only hovers from day to day, not alive and not dead?  Our memories were so wrought with hurt and fear — was I ever alive?  Were you?

        I want to ask you all these questions and many more, but of course I can't.  I have to be strong — no, we have to be strong together to prepare, and you wouldn't have the answers to any of these questions anyway.  You remind me of Kurt’s dog, that sleek cocoa brown one that growled whenever you put your face close to hers . . . she never bit me even though she snarled.  Maybe she was claustrophobic.  She spoke to me through her growl and always came back for more . . . for love.  I miss you.  I've always missed you.

        I can't help but feel transparent, naked to you and to anyone who happens to look at me in the right light.  When I'm in a room full of people I just want to start screaming, “Can't you all see my pain?  Someone must feel it — it's so damn intense!!”  But instead, I grin and converse and I smile my lie periodically, just like every other victim in the room — in the world.  How can people pretend that everyday life isn't brutal?  These people frighten me; maybe I desperately envy them.  I think it's the helplessness, the out of control feeling that has been tormenting me the most.  hypocrisy?  After all, we as humans have no choice but to adapt and I must admit I do quite well at it.  Do you think that a room full of people could adapt to me shrieking with utmost candor that life is not fair?  Although the majority of the crowd may agree with me, I doubt they would appreciate my screaming that fact at them . . . most would probably tell me to shut the hell up.  Imagine a crowded cocktail party, every guest with drink in hand . . . the color of the liquor sloshing down their throats occasionally matching their fancy attire . . . hypocrisy . . . women with lit cigarette weapons discussing politics with waving hands, embers coming dangerously close to taffeta — could that be the perfect crime?  “But officer — we were discussing the fall of The Roman Empire — how should I know her dress would burn?  Or that the dress would press so close to me; the crowd must have surged forward.”  That would be a party to remember I'm sure: “Smashing party last night, though very unfortunate that young woman caught on fire — you missed the party?  Shame, let me describe it.”   As if they could describe the scene in words that could denote the textures — the smells — the fear.  Would they consider the consequences?  Maybe screaming wouldn't be as exciting, but a point of interest nonetheless.  Imagine the sheep droning on and on until I start screaming toward maybe the ceiling and yeah, a stodgy gray-haired man with a proper English accent telling me to go outside if I insist on making such noise.  Could I ever stop if I began?  Even though I think a lot about screaming aloud in crowded rooms I've never been able to do it.  It's not that I lack incentive.  There have been many full, boring rooms that needed something to liven them up; nor do I lack the guts, well, maybe some night after ten drinks I'll try it.  That way, I can blame the incident on the alcohol and not a lack of sanity.  Alcohol isn't real guts; I know.  Just don't tell them — then again, maybe you should.  It's too bad I don't drink anymore.  Before you die you ought to try screaming aloud in a crowded room.  It may help you cope with your fate, you know.  Think of screaming as a clay hand print — I was here!  I’m me!  Anyhow, I’m sure it's good for a laugh in the very least.  Just promise that I’m in the room when you do it.  I could use a laugh to remind me to breathe.

        Can a page wink?  You must think that I’m insane talking this way to a dying man, but I must tell you that the short grin I just witnessed is worth losing my credibility as a sane person.  Another grin, oh I see, you know that I never have been one to pass for Society’s definition of sane, come to think of it neither have you.  Now I realize the grin is extraneous.  Do you think that it's cold in here?  No?  You don't find that it's chilly even?  It must be me then; I am as ice to the bone.  Frosty, frozen and aware, years have passed so fast and yet so deliberately long at first don't you think?  Where are we now?  Does it matter?  Clouds have certain advantages over us just floating along without a care.  Have you ever seen two clouds collide?  No, neither have I, that's because clouds have a leisurely existence; they don't have to watch what's coming up in front of them, not like us.  I don't want to cry you know.  I already did when I first looked in my yearbook.  I know you remember what you wrote; it made me laugh and I just had to cry.  I didn't take you seriously because you didn't want me to since you weren't serious about yourself . . . I wanted to remain special to you because I saw what happened in your relationships and I loved you but knew if I let you love me in that way I would lose YOU . . . and me and life . . . the integral pain allowed us to love each other in the only way we possibly could . . . we still smile secretly when anyone mentions the Memorial Day party . . . sharing our fright of the future in the back of the Datsun, your legs poking out the driver's window . . . we never let sex ruin our friendship, did we?  Then again, we never spoke about it, ever; we got dressed and drove away.  I never told anyone.  Damn, we constantly felt we needed to remind ourselves that we were alive — but we were!  Why did we feel dead?  How fucking futile can consciousness be?  We couldn’t have been anything other than who we were and that feels too damn inadequate.  We chose to love which meant mutual isolation.  Even though we never kept in touch for these past years I can't help but feel cheated that you're leaving because no matter what — I always knew that you were out there somewhere and all I had to do was just find you because you were out there and now that comforting thought is being ripped away from me and I feel lonelier than I have ever felt in my life because I know that you recognize me John.  You knew I was flux and were willing to share abandonment for no and all good or bad reasons.  You knew I was screaming in every room I entered.  I think I heard you scream too and the imposed silence of your absence won't kill me — that’s the hardest.   Do you think that crying again will help?  Could we cry together?  Wait — I have a better idea, let's go scream at the world before the sun comes up . . . Too bad no one will hear.