i was there/shiny and so bright

i'm losing my edge

"yeah, i'm losing my edge

i'm losing my edge

the kids are coming up from behind

i'm losing my edge"

i was there in 1994 at the smashing pumpkins headlining lollapalooza. well, not there but outside and down the street at some church lockin or something because there was a girl my friend was trying to date, but i was there outside listening fully to the beastie boys ending their set and the chants and the cheers as the pumpkins took the stage. i was there with such young ears, listening to the siamese dream lilt and roar across those miles to smiling me, content and hungered for that sound and fury in my bones.

i was there in that shopping mall when pisces iscariot came out on that gooey yellow vinyl sitting high behind the counter at the record shop. $15 i didn't have. stupid kid sorting it out. jobs and responsibilities and dying to get out of my town. also, not really having a record player anymore, and cds were the wave. long boxes all the gatefold artwork we really got back then. 

i was there in the first truck of a friends sister who had left her gish tape in the tapedeck and the case in the door cubby. hypnotized from the get-go. artwork and crush. i was there. 

i was there in my first apartment on the day mellon collie came out. listening to the album on that tuesday when records came out on tuesday mornings. right after work to my first apartment and listened to mellon collie with my pearl jam loving buddy, listening. 

"the world is a vampire." press the track back button...

"the world is a vampire." press the track back button...

"the world is a vampire." press the track back button...

"the world is a vampire." ... 

and so on. for eternity. in amber. that moment.

i was there with pantera/white zombie tickets for the night that the news broke jimmy chamberlin and jonathan melvoin overdosed in a new york hotel room and the upcoming list of shows, (where i finally for the first time see live, not just hear from miles away, but would actually witness all 4 original members of the pumpkins) all those shows were cancelled.

and heartbroken i, cancelled seeing the mighty pantera because my future pumpkins dreams were dashed.

i was there when the aeroplane flies high box set came out. black and white spiral mini vinyl carrier with all the melloncollie singles. i lied to my friend that i wrote my name on the "THIS BOX BELONGS TO..." under the lid in crayon, hoping he'd fuck his up.

i studied the b-sides. i fell in love with the diverse textures and feelings.

i was there when the pumpkins regrouped with the drummer from filter, i was there. in dallas. in the stands. stage left. destroyed by the magnitude of rock n roll. destroyed by the volume of hits and sound up in the stands like i had spent all night in the pit. i was there.

i was there when the magician hat stage setup, setup in my hometown. on the floor. with seats, this time. and took in the blast and magick full bore. the Quiet and loud. the majesty!

i was there 5th row at the adore show. when my friend from the first apartment, "world is a vampire" pearl jam super fan, on the third row caught one of billy corgans picks and proceeded to give the pick to my other friend who no way was a bigger fan than i.

i was there in line, the day after st. patrick's day/night... sleeping it off and like 20th in line, when the machina tickets went on sale. right before i had a cellphone, my then wife called my corgan pick friend's cellphone to forcibly inQuire if i was staying out all night now? to which i replied, "i told you pumpkins tickets were on sale."

i would come home to find she had, overnight, moved everything out of the house and we were finally done. i called her one last time to get my guitars, my stereo and albums and my dog, zero back.

i walked away from the marriage and saw the pumpkins front row in dallas, austin, and houston in the coming months.

washing my soul clean.

i was there when the band broke up. but not at the machina signing autographs and taking photos jaunt. i wasn't there for meeting my heroes. i didn't need another piece of them. don't meet your heroes they said. "dude i met metallica back in the day... what a bunch of dicks!"

i didn't go. i went to the shows. i made it front row twice. i screamed so loud at my excitement seeing jimmy back in the fold, he winked at me. i got a smile from billy.

i was there.

i was there for jimmy chamberlins side jazz project, the jimmy chamberlin complex in the small room at the meridian. jimmy walked by and touched me on the shoulder on his way to the kit, saying gently "excuse me." 

i was there for those giant swirling riffs of zwan. i ruined someone's night singing (badly) every lyric in their ear.

i was there in dallas for billy's solo show and after an altercation with a dude and his girlfriend over crucial viewing real estate before the band took stage, it was not wanting to get kicked out of the room for stomping some dallassian. and i was blown the fck away. iggy pop cover. ac/dc cover. electronic but metal as hell. i was there.

i was there for night one two and five (and should have been 6) of the san francisco residency when the pumpkins unleashed the zeitgeist. i was there when tarantula was on the air the same day as the white stripes icky thump. i was there when the pumpkins slated for 3 plus hours in the house that psychedelica built at the fillmore west. those hallowed halls of the dead, jefferson airplane, hendrix, Quicksilver messenger service, 13th floor elevators. i was there walking where haight and ashbury meet. carrying the soul of my newly dearly departed father who loved the scene but never saw the scene because of the kids he had so early. WE were there. dad and i at those pumpkins shows. we saw one of our points of light, coming back so sure and strong. 

i was there when the pumpkins played later down the zeitgeist trail in (b)orlando and houston and austin. austin where i would finally catch one of billy's picks. holy!

i was there with my love, my entire heart finally in place in my chest and in my life, dominique, at u of h. watching billy gracefully rip through all the songs he'd written. all those hits. hole. imbruglia. soundtracks. so beautifully arranged. 

and tonight (tonite) the pumpkins return to houston. all the important members in place. the constructors to the soundtracks of my everydays. i've felt my way through all of the songs. even the ones that still sting. even the ones that don't matter anymore or never did. all of those songs. b-sides... c-sides.... even sides of sides... songs that were in commercials. i connected and held this band in my heart, seeing them over 25 (28) times. defending their honor through friends and enemies of modern music. 

but tonight. i won't be there. i didn't buy tickets because we're planning a wedding for this year. and taking my family to the beach this weekend for a mini vacation is where my heart wants to go now. tonight, nostalgia will miss me as i rush to get home to hold my love, hug our girls, chill with our boy. 

and it's just not in the cards for me, tonight, so shiny, so bright. 

i've heard all of those songs, even recently... so this was never really a reunion. the pumpkins are eternal and will be written about years after it's all over as one of the greats. and for that i am thankful to have been a part. 

rock on pumpkins. 

open letter to my cellphone provider

AT&T sent me the following text this morning, a week and a half into my billing cycle. below is my text-back. 

HEY YOU THIEVING MOTHERFUCKERS! YOURE THE ONES WHO LABELED IT 'UNLIMITED', NOT ME. IF IT WERE ME, I WOULD HAVE CALLED IT THE 5GB PLAN. OR THE JUST BARELY A WEEKS WORTH OF CAT VIDEOS PLAN...MAYBE THE KISS 5GB OF AT&T'S ASS PLAN? COME ON!? GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!    5 FUCKING GB A MONTH? ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME? I GO THROUGH 5GB ON A TUESDAY WATCHING THE STARWARS TRAILER OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I GO THROUGH 5GB GOOGLING WHERE THE FUCK THE KARDASHIANS ATE DINNER LAST NIGHT? I SPEND 5GB STREAMING SPOTIFY TO BLAST THE SMITHS "MEAT IS MURDER" DIRECTLY AT THE LOCAL SLAUGHTERHOUSE TO PASSIVE AGGRESSIVELY LET THEM KNOW IT AINT COOL WHAT THEYRE DOING IN THERE. I SPEND 5GB WRITING A BLOG EXPLAINING TO THE CHILDRENS SO THEY MIGHT UNDERSTAND THE DAILY SENSE OF GRIEF THAT WE ALL ARE FORCED TO DEAL WITH IN A WORLD WHERE 5GB IS SUPPOSED TO BE SYNONYMOUS WITH UNLIMITED. 

RED LOBSTER DOESNT SAY UNLIMITED SHRIMPS MEANING 5 FUCKING SHRIMPS! PORNHUB DOESNT ADVERTISE UNLIMITED GANGBANGS WITH ONLY 5 DUDES IN THE ROOM! THE BIBLE DOESNT OFFER AN UNLIMITED AND ETERNAL AFTERLIFE MEANING 5 GOLDEN DAYS AND NIGHTS IN BEAUTIFUL BORELANO FLORIDA. 

WHAT YOU SHOULD DO IS THE FOLLOWING: REALIZE THAT THE EXORBITANT AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU ALREADY GET FROM A LARGE PORTION OF THE SMARTPHONE TANNED POPULATION JUST FOR THEIR DAILY WHATHAVE YOU THEY HAVE GROWN ACCUSTOM TO IS MORE THAN ENOUGH AND THAT ALL THE TAXES AND THE ATTACHED FEES AND THE SMALL PRINT YOU PUT IN THERE TO TRICK CONSUMERS INTO CONSTANTLY UPGRADING THEIR PHONE AND THEIR PLAN IS SIMPLE AND UNFAIR CONSUMER PRACTICES. ITS TICKETMASTER SURCHARGES.

ITS CHICKS WITH DICKS. ITS GOLDEN CORRAL. ITS 48 OUNCE COLAS. ITS THE YETI... 

ALL A CLEVER RUSE.

GO AHEAD AND THROTTLE 5GB OF THIS DICK YOU LOUSY CORPORATE SWINE AIMING TO STIFLE MY LITTLE ELECTRONIC WORLD! ILL SEE YOU IN THE 6TH RING OF 5GB OF HELL.

dustin

oft times/solace of being ghost

Oft times, i wish to spend a moment in the conjure to wash this screen alit with brilliant words. oft times, i type the simple words, "fuck this" and the muse stretches out her soft glowing arms, slaps me hard in the face, yells, "NO!" at me like im a child and then scampers back atop my hope chest.
oft times... i dont have anything to say at all, but want to say it all.

lately, i've return back to the thought that the world is mirror and veils of illusion. truths and untruths, learned and forgotten again... spiral circles of desire and depression bourne out our own heads from our-future-selves leaving us voicemail messages like breadcrumbs through the ever changing face of the forest. to see. to be. to consume. to return again... ravenous to covet and long again. groundhog day reworked. fixed-broken-fixed and remixed.

we are with the ones who will take us through to the next parts of me... the next parts of you. levitation out of the Quagmires into a (hopefully) higher touch of reason and empathy.

it's this heavy intertwined with the vapidness in traffic and old songs spun anew. same stupid foods. same stupid attitudes. same stupid jokes. over and over and under again.



                 do you leave a mark on the world or does the world leave its mark on you?

dont we try? in our conversation. in our day to day. in our heroics or even cowardices... this was who i was. let the world ring on that i held these numbered days this a way. such a short dance we get with this life. and you wonder if this life goes on... beyond the beyond... and you continue the dance with a different understanding. we grow all of these thoughts... build all of these kingdoms. sacrifice through these hells or perceptions of hells... surely those castles we build in the sky could have some footing?
whatever dreamed this all up. why wouldnt that dream include a seQuel?

fucking jaws got a seQuel.

fucking fast and the fortuitous got a fucking seQuel.

fucking deuce bigalow.

surely an existence. 

maybe that's the rub. maybe the lunatics see it as it truly is. voices in your head tell you this is all there is. do what you want with no recourse. one shot. fuck it. trail of tears. make it happen. 

Alexander supertramp style.

beauty and ruin.

conformity and the abandon of conformity for the sake, lack of, or abandon of sanity. 

all this is...

you create a world. you include the people inside of that world that you've now chosen to hold on dearly to. the wayside littered with empty discarded relationships of nostalgia or past obligation, hearts you stopped trying to mend.

you keep that fragile bubbleskin solid as it can be alive and floating and you tear the throats out of this who try to burst that bubble as it floats through an ever changing landscape. sometimes sharp. sometimes dark. and you hope that when it's all over for you and your bubble that you might trip through the walls to knock shit over to let those you loved know you're still around and you'll dance once more. 

the solace of being ghost. 

a balance of opposites

to be shared on the day of your lord, 

dec 31.2014


its been said by someone greater than i, that a happy writer is a shit writer. i've read and have listened to records by the greats and its just a scientific fact that its when an artist is grasping at straws and trying his damnedest not to off himself is when the best work shines through. it's when you have nothing left and youre in the death throes of losing even that last bit of your mind that you are free to create the most beautiful pictures. the grandness in the flailing.
so then, it is the heavy hand of death that makes one seek to live vividly. death is the greatest artist of us all. or the muse-iest siren ever to sing her hymns to those frail enough to admire her voice.

i, by no means, consider myself a great writer. i recently forgot how to use commas. i am an idiot in sheeps clothing. but i do gett off on the creation of something from nothingness. the blank page, suddenly alive in blood, sweat, tears or other fluid. catharsis. a mark on the world to even when deleted or torn from the bind of the old empty journal... a mark nonetheless. that is coolness to me. that is where i feel, when so much of the time i can't feel anything. that's why i will always return to her broken brownstone arches on the wrong side of the tracks to get another taste... just another hit... just one fix more...

so this murderous ravaging mass of finality and cause screams, and some of us go tractorbeam forth blinded by the light, bugs blindly flying to that glowing flicker flame.

but when happiness is apparent. when the world has finally shone such a light on your total mediocrity, returning to those broken places where you keep your cigarbox of doubt and self-deprecation and dashed hopes and dreams, is the last place you wanna be found. the last place you want to have your light find you.

sadness breeds art. how good that art is based on how true the artist can be with himself. how limitless he can stand amongst the ruins with all of the walls down to show you where mommy and daddy failed and where all the girls with their hidden agendas got in and rearranged things. where all the atrocities of time and history and the world all fucked him over deeply without him even knowing it was all hurting. where the smell from all the burnt bridges singes the nose, settles smokey into your hair and skin.

happiness is the enemy of art. this is true. i have come to this platform several times over this last year with a voice in my head wanting out... things i've thought i wanted to say. eulogies to spill over. stories to share.

KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID. id tell myself in someone elses voice, not my own.



the fact is... im happy and i know my art is suffering because of it.

ive been on a slow sad train for the better part of my life and as that train rolled into another sad station in april this year, my life would be changed by the magick that i am still experiencing. and she is robbing you ALL of my art. but i seriously could never trade her for anything else. love is such a strange division of death. the feels are kinda the same but totally opposite. because i met this woman... and i want to sing all the songs from the mountaintops. and i want to write sonnets with the vibrations that she sends through me like electrical currents. and i want to write her name on all the cathedrals because they will be the only thing left standing when we are all dead and gone... but i come here. and i am too happy to feel like i have written anything worth a damn, and i feel like i have cheated you.



thats just gonna have to be how it goes dummies! if there's one thing ive learned in life, it's you gotta get used to feeling cheated.

xistence

you cre8 a tiny little universe.

spin a world round this burning nuclear core

decide the light source, the wind, the seasons

you populate your worldview with those things you love in your good image, and make them so.

you invite those sleeping visages in, naming each one something clever. (you're so clever)

you stand tall and prideful in your little planet, nurturing its delicate sensibilities.

temperance. grace.

its Quiet meanders.

its all points south.

its colors and colours.

every. slight. variation.

different. plains. of. existence.

(difrnt planes of xtc)

you paint yourself into corners with the right people at the wrong times and the wrong people at the wrong times you believed were right times.

alcohol. meditations. mediations. medications. televised radio film. to numb your imperfections and set yourself to measuring holograms of greatness against all of your fears.

you give yourself a heaven to deny, fearing the hell you gave yourself may be all too real.

you make up ions of past thought to confuse the simple thoughts you once had into belief that you were always so advanced. 

you've heard all the bands. you've seen all the films. you've read all the books. 

you love. so very much. so many things. so very deeply. 

you created love. hid it away. look for where you hid it. daily.

constantly aching. desperately wanting.

you know the saying about the 90% of your mind you don't use isn't scientifically true, but dimensionally, that vast percentage is universally working on the next scene change.

the next dress rehearsal.

for someone, like you. 

that's not you.

while you sit alone in fear. in a painted corner. clinging to everything you've ever lost. every band you've heard. every film you've ever seen. every word you've ever read. every love... gone.

they have found the reason for our begins. they have found the bend in space in our life neath the magnet of giants. the birth of our self importance. the anti-matter of our destruction.

time as a flat circle.

blaming it on the black stars.

the balance of opposites.

and you never learned how to be happy.

(get over yourself, please.)

L O V e

this isn’t so much about the skull of st. valentine in a lonely basilica with a label bearing the name "st. valentine"on it. nor do i feel the need to discuss the 60 percent markup on anything red or pink or flower that may be considered arbitrarily, beautiful sold to masses of lazy lovers. and this isn’t a heart wrench or a cry that you hear at night. this isn't all the bitemarks. the scratches. the ripping or the tearing. this is love. it's truest essence, and what it means to me. 

oh sing muse!

 

love is so fucking real, right!? like just this eruption in spirit and tone. it is the one thing in this world that nature cannot replicate in any other species or in itself. no other form, other than this imperfection can create this attachment to LOVE…holy. pure. just all bones and teeth and insecurities. and try as they may, it finds no home in all of the clever marketing for a day sprung only from a cash grab of obligations and forced marriage proposals based on peoples NEED to feel and show love. be that for love or lust or behind the backs of love not felt any longer.

i’ve personally never understood valentines day. and this isn’t from the dead black space where at least one faint chamber still pulsed a beat on that damn dull dumb drum. maybe it's where i contain any optimism... maybe the foolish optimist, who feels he gets this one seemingly universal understanding. perhaps, it's the hopeless romantic in my bones that poetically draws on this intrinsic desire, giving it such a holy voice… or maybe it's total naïveté … but i always felt that LOVE was meant to be felt all the fucking time. not just on the day they tell you to feel. but from sunrise to sunset... back in baby's arms. wrapped inside of each other.

all the religions. the arts. the songs. all of war… all stemming from this one desire, to love and be loved.

 to understand. to be understood. 

to share... even within misery. believing that the sharing gets you through the cruelty of a planet of thieves and falsehoods.

 

of course, as everything else, we have perverted the ethos behind the emotion. attributed it's embrace to characters not able to return love. mixed the truth in it with our sex. hobbled love's stupid legs with outrageous wounds of limitations. perhaps love has been set love atop such vicious pedestals that those honeyed gains, never to be acquired… a mountaintop only for the gods we could never make of ourselves.

but the very essence of truth in love still reverberates through our hollow ribcages… we want to express ourselves through someone else. we want to scream in those canyons that another person helps us create and hear that echo come screaming right back at us! 

we want/need to feel

that dull beating drone.

ravage us.

pound inside of us.

leave us shuddering.

begging for more.

 

poetically, it has been said, and repeated ad nauseum, that “tis better to have loved and lost, than never have loved at all.” to which i spit in said general direction. for to me, to lose, even for an instant the constant in this base emotion, is a separation greater than soul from body. LOVE is ALL. it is breath. it is light...  do you fucking hear me!? LOVE IS FUCKING ALL.

pure.

holy.

 

from my solitary personal standpoint… me on the lip of this bridge, gazing into the abyss and feeling her taught glare right back into my own… i have waved my white flag years ago simply because i can't deal with this new take on modern love/ modern romance and i have very cleverly destroyed myself ever since i last  bridged the gap between loneliness and possession of lioness. to lose that reverberating echo come back my way one last time... utter fucking destruction.

though ive felt brushes with the emotion several times since then... once a very close call to the edge again... something though was absent... because i have felt love tiee to railroad tracks and send a bullet train over me. i have stood in the ring with love, and had it take my stupid block off. i fucking know, when it's a motherfucker... and i beg for the entire careening effect to smash into me again and make me fucking hurt so that i know i am alive again. 

it's sick. it's damaged. but if it doesn't kill me... i can't tell if it's real.

same token. to be led to where i am, trollops in summer dresses, left bleeding alongside the road... that shit wasn't real either. and it totally wasn't worth it. and it was only angels with dirty faces. 

so, you know... toss up i guess! a real damned if you do sort of ordeal.

like everything else, it doesn't always make sense and sometimes regret either way are the same chains you forge. 

my wish for you, lovers... fucking feel it today and let it remind you how it should be all of the time. on the 15th... the 21st. may...July... september... keep it alit. 

visceral. 

breaking.

and try not to let it destroy you.

if youre friends with d.... well then you're friends with me... ifyou're down with d... well then you're the down with me

friends of me

hope the wintertime is treating you as well as possible. i know that fbook is a fast paced wasteland of stalkings and emptiness, so i don’t want to spend much of your time, so to summarize this message to determine if it is worth your read or time, it goes like this:

my 40^th birthday is this November and id like to cordially invite you to my party… 

yes yes… i fucking KNOW NOVEMBER is faraway, i get it. i mean, who thinks of themselves so highly that they go into birthday preparations 9 months away? grossly this Question prompted me to face the idea that 40 years ago around valentines day, i was conceived. it was a disgusting venture im sure, and up until this moment, i don’t think i had HAD to consider this reality. but alas, bobby and lisa got it together so so many moons ago that today, i come to you, humbly and ask for you to consider this following venture.

an awfully good friend... NAY GREAT friend of mine has decided, without any prior communication to me mind you, that he would go ahead and ask this really great woman who chooses to tolerate him to marry her. fine fine… bells and whistles… the crowd goes wild… uh,  WELL GOOD FOR FUCKING THEM!

dustin? you ask… what the hell does this have to do with anything? why the hell would it matter if your friend is getting married. she sounds lovely. they must be very happy… doesn’t everyone deserve happiness after all? just because you're miserable every.single.day. doesn't mean the world has to join in on your misery... jusssssst SHARE the link to the nuptials and allow us to LIKE it or comment an ongoing minutia of mind numbing prayers and congratulatory replies and well wishes.

well, if you know me… you know i can be slightly selfish. (whaaaaaaa?!) surprising, i know… BUT... THIS MFKR DECIDED… OUT OF THE FREAKING BLUE… that the best time to do this is on MY GODDAMN birthday weekend! ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!

normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. i don't take my birthday that seriously... im not a 14 year old girl... i dont own a goddamn tiara. and normally, with a friends wedding, they ride into the sunset, we all drink and carouse and have stories that we tell for a couple of years about the shenanigans from the bachelor party and the reception. the strippers… the phone synched messages to ipads back home…                            ;)

but this isn’t normal is it? i turn 40 this year! FCKNG40!!! that’s grave son! that's black balloons and when drinking recreationally turns into full blown alcoholism. that’s beyond midlife crisis! you know how many of these milestones i have left? ummm. this. FUCKING. ONE! that’s it! i don’t get a 50! im already choking on every gdamn thing i put in my mouth… (pause for jokes from the peanut gallery) 

[jerks]

my goddamn days are numbered my friends! they were numbered before… but they sure as hell are more numbered now… (less numbered?) and now i have to share MY GODDAMN weeknd with 2 people, who i hope are very happy, and will spend a lifetime in bliss, who could have chosen ANY.

                                                                      OTHER.

                                                                                     POSSIBLE.

FUCKING

                                                                                                        WEEKND!

soooooo… here’s where you, the patient reader. the friend. the foe. the acQuaintance comes in…

the wedding, and as it so CONVENIENTLY happens, MY FORTIETH birthday, will be held in 

las vegas Nevada the weeknd of November 15^th. and alllllllll i ask, is that

                                                                                                YOU

all come and help us all blow it to hell as we wish                                      cherry

  gary 

  jerr-bear

  world of Warcraft nerdboy

  jerry and Jaime a very happy whatever.

but more importantly… come out and join ME, and us, for a drink or so and help me ring in my, this last of hurrahs!

the weight of autumn

the month of october is always a strange time for me. theres definite noticiable changes in the weather and the ways that we move around and into each other... sharing our orbits differently as the coolness removes all the stickiness of the long texas summer. theres a beginning pattern of wanting to close another year down and get into the holidays... all the wine... and the friends... the families... the togetherness... the warmth of home. the joy in being close to each other once more.

and for me, and many of us. there is a sense of loss that can and almost does completely overwhelm knowing that some of those we NEED are not there any longer.

my dad would be celebrating his 62nd birthday this year tomorrow, had we not lost him 8 years previous nearer the end of october. and there is not one single day that i do not think about him or want to hear ANYTHING from him. his laugh. his "words of wisdom." the basis for how i learned how to cuss. ANYTHING! there is a hole that i know can never be filled with anything else. and i carry this empty planet in my stomach every single day... and feel it in my bones when the weather begins to shift. thats the weight of autumn.

my dad was every instance of what i know a man to be. the strongest hombre in the galaxy. the reason i know laughter in any and at ALL times. the kindest gentlest demeanor in some of the strangest moments and some of the most perfect and opportune times. wise beyond his years, like an old soul that was spent up in lives previous, just as i and we were learning to appreciate just what a great man he was and could be. my dad is the reason i have absolutely no problem to tell someone to go fuck themselves and is the very reason that i care about so much so deeply. music and your own opinions mattered to my father. and i learned so much from him in such a brief time in what wasnt always the ideal circumstances to learn a goddamn thing.

to lose someone. and to miss that someone in the very essence of your being, is the most heartbreaking experience i have ever known and i would never wish that on anyone. its there like a shadow that no matter how much you run from, is always right there. holding weightlessly onto you.

yes there are the memories... but when you cant remember anything... theres a lot less of that cliche. so i go on just these little pieces of part memory and part gut feeling instilled in me of how the man that i knew as my father would want me to be. and maybe thats part of my downfall, and maybe thats eQual parts my charm... but maybe thats all i can be. the son of a son of a son and nothing beyond that. all that i have of him, i make look like me in hopes that what he would see would make him smile that great smile and without a word, id know it was true.

love as much as you can. its really all we have.