Reflection (So That I Can Get On With My Day)
My text books tell me that it’s a form of good therapy to release tension and anxiety.
I’ve done so today by:
1) singing “Til Shiloh” and “Wanting Memories” to myself as I drove through the rain to work.
2) crying.
3) buying myself a Protein Berry Workout Smoothie from Jamba Juice. Probably should’ve gotten a bigger one.
4) crying some more.
Now I’m sitting in my office trying to do my goddamn work but all I can think about is her. For my sake, I need to get this out of me.
Oh, the things that I would do to her. They replay in my mind a little like this:
I grab her by the hair at the back of her head. My fists are clenching at her roots and I feel the strain of wanting to pull at her scalp so violently that her skin rips off.
I want blood.
I want as much blood as was found in her Honda Pilot; as much blood as was scrubbed off of the Kaiser parking lot floors before the police came; as much blood as that which runs through my heated body. I want blood even though I know that no matter how much blood there is my friend will never come back to me.
It’s hard through all of this noise. Through frail friendships, Facebook statuses and Twitter updates. It’s hard to hear your voice, Shellie, but I’m trying.
I’m trying every day to find meaning in all of this pain. Some days, it’s easy. Some days all it takes is a sunset or a run around Lake Merritt or a reeeeally good hit from J’s bong to remind me of simple life pleasures. But other days, like today, when I see her sitting in the courtroom, dressed in all red, reading a book and cracking jokes with other inmates and her public defender - making jokes as if your death was funny - it’s difficult.
But I hear you, faint as it sounds, I hear what you’ve been telling me all along -
“Do not remember me and feel sad, psis. Remember me and feel happy.
Do not remember me and feel hate, psis. Remember me and feel love.
Do not cry over my dead body, psis. Rejoice because my spirit is still alive.”
I hear you, Shellie. But it is so difficult.
