in memory of...

it has been 15 years today
since you have been gone.

how can that be?

15 years.

you would have been 32...
but instead you were 17.

remember how when we were kids
we used to say that when we grew up and got married
we would live next door to each other
and you would paint your house red
and mine would be purple...

remember how we used to freak out
over red fiaros
and bon jovi videos (we could do all the actions at just the right time)...
billy idol
and the cult...

remember "i don't know why she swallowed a fly"
"i guess she'll die"
"fuck-a-duck"
and other meaningless to anyone-else-but-us sayings...

annual trips to the carnival?

the art of getting permission to go to the show
which involved asking your parents,
walking to my house to ask my parents,
walking back to your house to ask your dad to drive us one way
walking back to mine to convince my dad to drive us the other...

singing at the top of our lungs as we walked...

the time we thought we were going to get drunk
on the little teeny tiny bottle of vodka
that was in your parents cupboard
and how we mixed the kool-aid
and poured the vodka in and were all psyched up at 14
to experience our first "drunk"
but i kept thinking i could smell something
and damn, but that smell was familiar
what is that smell....
and just before we took our first drink,
it hit me...
TURPENTINE.
the little bottle of vodka was not vodka,
at all...

we had to throw out the juice jug even,
cause we couldn't get the smell out.
and vodka-and-kool-aid became the new funny phrase
that no one else got
but us
(although we were careful not to say that one around your parents)

i think of you and i think of
fisher price little people,
muppet babies,
happy days,
how you could never sit still when something tense was
happening on tv,
(like the time the fonz was going to jump over the barrels)
skillet uniforms,
blue and gray far west jackets,
that look you used to give when mad,
barbies in the bathroom with masking tape on
for bathing suits and peices of toilet paper for towels...

i remember how you used to laugh
just
for me...
how i could make you laugh harder than anyone...
i always knew you would laugh.

i couldn't eat with you at birthday parties
because i would inevitably make you laugh
and you would either spray your food everywhere
or choke...
and i'm still sorry for the time at mcdonalds
when i made you laugh and you choked and threw up
and then cried in the bathroom and wouldn't come
out because you were too embarrassed...
until i made you laugh telling you that an old lady
was cursing at the boy who was sitting next to us
because she thought he had made you throw up.

its funny that people i meet now (not family, of course)
find me "reserved"
i have a certain boundary line about being touched,
i don't readily give hugs
and people don't see me as the type of person
that you would just come up and hug...
not even my bestest of friends
and i think you would find that strange
because you were the only friend i had
that i felt comfortable with giving a kiss on the cheek
or the forehead...
with hugging or wrestling with...
there was never any question.
i wonder if thats why now i'm like this,
reserved and held back.

i dreamt about you after the accident.
i dreamt you were hurt, but you were ok
and we were still walking from my house to your house
but i was carrying you...

when i woke up i was crying
but i was so damn happy and releived and excited
and then i remembered.

15 years ago.
how can that be?