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Alone, where I always am, my head fans the flames of memories constantly. I see a woman from behind, standing, leaning her head out the window of a hotel room, talking to the neighbors. In a night where it had rained. I see myself standing there, and I am jealous of that boy who got to touch her from behind, feeling more in two fingers than I had ever felt throughout my whole being, feeling more in his eyes than I will ever feel again. I remember a story about a little girl, lesbians, and eating muffins. I remember every noble feeling that ever passed through my failing body. My withering pauper's heart's pathetic attempts to seduce the queen, summed up so curtly: "You're not an idiot. Your only mistake was getting involved with the likes of me. : / " Years of hopeless dedication, desirous fidelity and stranded adoration summed up and slaughtered by an emoticon.

The sweetest moments of life have passed me by, burned furiously fast and wafted away in the smoke of the flames. Only the embers in the ashes remain alive to torture the sleepless with memories of fire.

I sat on a high cliff today, felt the wind and watched the emerald sea roll. I looked deep out over the ocean and pictured myself being dropped far out into it, left to float until I could float no more. Moments like those, where the thought is more like a warm blanket than a sharp knife, are the moments I have to remember the flames at their fullest most consuming brilliance. I have to remember being a big man in a small fort, reading a story to a most lovely companion. I have to remember hand-holds and communion in smiles. I have to remember the woman in the window, after the rain in a hotel room, looking like she was mine for a brief moment, like her heart beat for me and her body sang my song. Even if it's only ashes from a fake fire, I have to remember. I have to try not to throw myself away like a ruined pillow case, even if I can't wash off the bloodstains left by my leaking heart.

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At least my friend Leonard Cohen was with me today:

"As the mist leaves no scar
on the dark green hill,
so my body leaves no scar
on you and never will.

Through windows in the dark
the children come, the children go,
like arrows with no targets,
like shackles made of snow.

True love leaves no traces.
If you and I are one,
it's lost in our embraces
like stars against the sun."