summer_thing raze is that what this is? i don't think "summer fling" fits. "fling" seems to imply something short-lived that won't live again. and while this thing has a shelf-life, i get the feeling we'll remain friends even when things change in a few months and geography imposes its will. so we're friends who are more than friendly. but it isn't a romance. that's something of a relief. i don't have the energy for all of that right now, emotional or otherwise, and i don't have it in me to try and change who i am to make someone else happy. been there. done that. bought the shirt. it shrunk in the wash. now i use it as a dust rag. we enjoy one other. there are no illusions. you are you, and i am me, and when we intersect it feels natural. maybe that's all it needs to be. not everything needs to have a name. 130727 ... raze three weeks and you're gone. sooner than expected. there's nothing like a mechanical timer strapped to your shoulder to give you a deeper appreciation for the time you do have. i can feel it ticking. 130804 ... raze "i like us," you said. i like us too. i'll miss it when it's no longer possible to be the us we are now. i like being able to laugh with you, with or without the wrapping paper we use to conceal the gifts we call ourselves. 130805 ... raze i'm glad i got to be there for your special night tonight. the maiden voyage. from my vantage point, there were times when the coffee-making machine fought to drown you out. your voice cut through the percolating and whirring even when the autoharp was submerged. your deep, strong, resonant voice. i was probably more nervous than you were. nervous that you would be nervous. but i don't think you were. it was good to watch you experience all the rowdy adulation. you deserve that giddy feeling of knowing you've succeeded in an environment that isn't as failure-proof as it might seem. they didn't pass the hat in my direction at the end of the show. it disappeared before i could drop some money in it. before i even saw it. i guess i'll have to make up for it the next time i see you. 130809 ... raze you're something else, even when you would say you're not at your best. you've taken things i never thought were within the realm of possibility and given them shape and heft. i'd like to keep you just a little while longer. time_runs_away too quickly. i think i'll steal its shoes. see how it manages barefoot. it's worth a shot, right? 130811 ... raze i can almost trick myself into thinking i still smell you on yesterday's clothes. almost. 130812 ... raze well, that was anticlimactic. you stir up all this desire, and then you want to stuff it back inside the cave it spilled out of. you take something healthy and good, and project a negative potential future onto it based on past experiences that have nothing to do with me, or us, or now. punish me for the sins of others. and when i ask you what it is you want after you tell me you can't handle this, you don't know. it would have helped to have all this information a little sooner. i was going to give you a candle to take with you when you left. that way, when things got dark, wherever you were, you could light it up and know someone in a smoggy city somewhere was sending good thoughts your way. seems like a pretty stupid idea now. the sad thing is, i'm not surprised by this anymore. the new noise is just the same as the old noise. it's not me, it's you. you can't promise anyone anything right now, not even yourself. you don't want to lose yourself in something, even though it's a no-strings-attached something that had a self-imposed cut-off date ten days from now. everything we shared was real, but it doesn't exist anymore. you want to stay friends, maybe, but you don't know what the nature of the friendship will be. and i'm supposed to put myself on ice until you figure it all out, and be okay with you suddenly taking away everything i was starting to grow comfortable with. as early birthday presents go, it's creative. i'll give you that much. 130813 ... raze you've changed your tune. it's as if two days ago never happened. part of me would like to tell you to go to hell. another part would rather feel you breathe that song into my shoulder_blades one last time, even while doubting its veracity. i don't know which part makes a better case for itself. i don't know if there's a "reset" button. i don't know. 130815 ... raze last chance tuesday is on its way. when you see me, what will you say? 130818 ... raze i'm not angry anymore. you're not afraid anymore. it all evened out. "i'm getting better at my mistakes," you said. i'd like to think i am too. maybe they're not new_mistakes, but i think i'm managing the old ones better than i used to. and i think we've been good for each other. we've given each other some things to carry. healthy things. true things. you left wearing my shirt. it looks better on you. i wonder if you'll still be wearing it the next time i see you. 130820 ... raze you're in texas. you kissed a gift horse on the mouth. you're not a ghost. yet. 130904 ... raze now you're two thousand miles away, sleeping in a walk-in closet. i wonder what you're dreaming in that cubbyhole. i wonder what clothes you wear in your sleep. 130921 ... raze maybe i'll see you around christmas. maybe i'll see you in the spring. maybe we'll watch a movie. maybe we won't do anything. your hair is always different when you show up in my dreams. i'm not sure what that's about. 131008 ... raze i have no idea what you're doing or who you're doing it with. i thought that would bother me. it doesn't really. you're just as in the dark as i am. even trade. 131018 ... raze and now you are a ghost. i was wondering when it would happen. 131031 ... raze if we weren't finished before, we're finished now. i'm thinking "fling" was the right word here all along. i'd say i hope you find what you're looking for, but it's difficult to find when you don't know what it is. so i'll just say good luck, and leave it at that. 131126 ... raze so there's no bitterness or wondering "what if" this or "what if" that. what was just stopped being, and now it isn't, and it hasn't been for a while, and it won't be again, unless you want it to be. and if you did want it to be, would i want the same thing? probably not. it didn't run its course so much as it walked, shrugged, and fell down a manhole, and the_borrowed_shirt might as well be yours. i have another of a different colour. 140204 ... raze you cut off your thick ropes of hair. they filled the bathroom sink, looking for all the world like the beige tentacles of some strange octopus. it seems wrong somehow. 181011 ... unhinged cutting off huge tentacles of hair is liberating 181016 ... raze i can only imagine ... i'm not sure i'd have the guts to do it myself at this point. after the abuse i had to put up with for growing my hair, it feels like a battle scar i earned — a part of me. it's just a little odd when you identify someone with the dreadlocks they've been growing and maintaining for the better part of twenty years, and then suddenly they're gone. makes you wonder. where do unwanted dreadlocks go? is there an afterlife for hair? 181016 what's it to you? who go blather from