so when the night gets cold and old and dark and lonely and memories creep in like september I think of michelle the one every man in the world falls in love with at least twice in their lives and how she laughed so you could see all her teeth and oh how she laughed so hard and so long and so often just for being alive and loved and being there with whoever she was there with. and how I loved her alone for so long and the years she stole from me and how I'd give them again for the first kisses in the spring behind the coffee shop when we kissed forever and longer and it still wasn't enough and how we learned so much from each other and how she left me cold and lonely and thinking maybe it's better to have never loved and never lost after all
and maybe I think of angelina with her wit and her brilliance and her inescapable misery and the scars on her arm and the cigarette burns on her leg who destroyed herself for some redemption she didn't need to begin with and me watching helpless and as miserable as her and our benzedrine frenzies when we clawed each others eyes out and how I miss even that now and I wonder where she's buried by now
sometimes I think of jenna the tiny dancer with the crimson hair and new york accent and the impenetrable new york spirit who could hold you at her long arms' length until the day she died and how much I loved her and how desperately I wanted to know her and help her but you can't really change people like that can you? so I mostly think of the times we spent in bus stations and falling asleep to the slow and steady beat of her breathing
yes and even allison with an 'A' and her tiny cold hands that always needed warming and how her beeswax lip balm burned me when we kissed and how she shivered when I touched her from from delight I shivered when she touched me from fear and how thirstily she drank down my lies. and how round her eyes looked whenever I spoke to her and how young oh god oh god how young she was not in years but in age and the night her window was locked and her shades were rolled down
I remember short sweet marie with her big round glasses magnifying her sharp little gray green eyes and how we sat behind a tree in the park during the high school football games and held each other close in the november chill without saying a word and I could run my fingers through her short blonde hair and just be happy to know she was there and to know. and I remember a little girl maybe seven or six walked by and saw us and said you look like you're in love and yes I guess I did love her then too.
and I think of jillian and of sailing in the bay together and kissing her cracked lips under capsized boats and I remember dancing together in the summer neon rains at night and her mouth and how it tasted like strawberries and how she smelled just like blue jello mix and sleeping on blankets on the beach clutching each other so hard it hurt just to keep from being lost in the hopeless sense of infinity that comes from staring at the clear gaping summer sky with countless hopelessly countless stars and discovering how too too too desperately short the summer is
and on and on and on until held tangled so tightly up in my own crazy sorrow so francesca's wisdom rings clear yes so crystal fucking clear over and over and over that there is no greater pain than to remember happy times in times of misery | 
