things have changed since we last spoke

ramblings about cigs/exes/jeff buckley

I listen to Jeff Buckley now.

And smoke cigarettes, albeit I am trying to quit. It makes it a little difficult in the mornings when I wake to realize I smoked the last stick in a pack the night before. I get carried away, wandering into my local gas station with the intention of coffee, just one cup to start the day on the right foot. I no longer drown the acidity in sandy sugars; milk and honey are enough, I don’t expect anything extra (extra). However, when I cash out there isn’t a clerk who doesn’t know my brand of choice at this point. I have transformed into a townie with unnatural hair colors, impulsive tattoo sleeves that infect empty skin like a plague, and a brand of choice. Naturally, at the end of purchase, they reach above to grab a pack of Marlboro Red 100s.

a persuasion of familiarity,

an easy up sell to a people pleaser who is satisfied in knowing that someone in this godforsaken town knows their needs without the exhaustion of expressing their desire, an addictive hierarchy of needs. I don’t stop them.

I’ve never been good at kicking bad habits.

I stopped trying to be the moon and change the tides. I allow myself to surrender to the current and have faith that the riptides won’t pull me under again. I no longer search for loose cobblestones in the street that could weigh me down and sink me to the bottom of the cove.

I do not give my phone numbers to strangers at the bars, tinder matches within the first twenty four hours of communication, or food delivery drivers who catch my (wise) eyes. I have sworn off constant trauma dumping on the internet (mostly) and save those stories for non-court-appointed therapists.

I no longer make plea bargains to white men in the sky. I no longer cannibalize deities in ritualistic sermons.

I have destroyed altars and shrines devoted to you. I am in the practice of not putting a false idol above my own and I spend Sunday mornings thinking of myself first, often working on holy days of rest. I work my minimum wage jobs longer than two weeks and I promise when I make a grandiose exit from work there is a good reason, at least one that i can justify, and truly that’s all I can ask for anymore.

The Pangea you were so familiar with has expanded, mountain ranges over different continents, fault lines creating new territory. Every cell has died a monumental ego death and rebirthed, rebranded.

This temple has new occupants, some who offer praise, some who place hints of doubt in the faith I was inspired to be built by. I’m no longer the flesh suit your fingers memorized and your fingertips, some missing, are no longer a touch that could be familiar.

I acknowledge now in my adoration of words and music by Lou Reed that it was you who introduced me to the artist and not a third-party site. I give credit to the things you introduced me to and the drugs you steered me from. I can admit when I was wrong, especially without backing my shortcomings with the sad tale about a girl you used to know. I share my lore like a campfire story instead of an excuse. I recognize that you were a victim too. I make peace internally that we both were then, children pretending to be adults, adults afraid of not being kids anymore, in love trying to make their way into a world not meant to support the wild wonder they once had in a future intertwined.

When I hear “in another life I would have been happy doing laundry and taxes” I don’t think of you, or anyone, merely myself in a world where I didn’t have a compulsive need to be something great.

I pride myself on truth despite how hard it is to speak, creating boundaries when it’s easier to relinquish control.

Yet, I would be returning to old ways with the tongue of a snake and the nose of a puppet. If I said there aren’t moments in this life, my one-track mind doesn’t pause to linger on the idea of you.

Jeff Buckley croons over my Alexa speakers on a cold winter morning, condensation crystalized into ice on my screen window, asking why you, lover, didn’t come over, reassurance delivered that it’s not too late although logic and history have declared it to be. These are the truths etched into stones that someday future tomb robbers will unearth in dismantled temple walls they know nothing of, a life they never experienced, and believe it is how I always felt instead of what I’ve had to train myself to believe.

And I will listen to the songwriter croon for six minutes and forty-four seconds, but not a minute more. I won’t give hallelujahs and sip lilac wines. because there is a cigarette screaming in ecstasy for me above the gas station clerk, calling me by name. and I must go please that habit. The one I swore I’d help you quit.