unwritten letters that were addressed to you.

Tonight it's not about me.

We were boys when we met.
He was built of wavy dark hair, rosy cheeks.
The reddest of lips that couldn't belong to anyone but that smiling youth;

An honest look that instantly spoke of intelligence and light.

That was him.

The fiercest intelligence tempered with the kindest ways.

We got a little older.
Cheeks were still rosy.
He developed a striking voice. A strong voice. A kind voice. A voice built for broadcasting.
Had the resolve to pursue his dreams. Was driven.

A heart of a good man trapped in a child's growing body.

We got a little older and larger. We were becoming men.
His heart continued to outgrow his bones. His intelligence inspired us all.
At his core,
He remained an innocent.

As my friends in high school drunkenly and dismissively plotted the demise of some of our classmates, he remained untouched and sacred in our little schemes.
He would remain unscathed. Safe.
We wanted him to win. We knew he would some day.

With the strong bodies of youth and the muddled hearts and hormones of children pretending to be men, we still knew that the good guys had to eventually win.
Isn't that right?

I remember my wife and I running into him at a store a few years back.
Brief conversation. Very pleasant.
I told my wife that I realized that he was one of the good memories of my school days.
It was weird.
We were never especially close, but his presence was always reassuring.
Was a reminder of the good things.
I remember her looking at me and nodding.
Within that briefest of exchanges, she looked at me and said that he was one of the kindest souls she had ever met.
I couldn't help but smile and agree.

He contacted me a little over a year ago.
We talked of a few things. Of following dreams.
We talked of getting together sometime, and catching up.
I wanted to see how one of the last good men was doing.
I knew he had to be winning. I believed in that.
I became too busy. And I forgot.

Today I received a phone call from a close friend.
Told me that this shining beacon with the deep voice from our childhood had passed away.
Had taken his own life.

No.

That can't be right.
He's one of the good guys.
This is not how it's supposed to turn out.
Good eventually wins, right?

Maybe sometimes it becomes a little too dark inside.
Maybe those smiles and kind eyes hide a truth
That we're afraid to share.
Maybe we think no one can understand.
Maybe it just hurts a little too much in the hidden places within that shorten your breath and
Tighten your chest,
The place between your eyes that scream of washed out colors and muted sounds,
Where it's a toss up between pain and numbness as the lesser of two evils.
Maybe the unanswered questions seemed like a better alternative.

Maybe it's too hard sometimes to see life past the point of your nose,
when nothing else seems to exist but the quiet promise whispered from within the black barrel of that gun.

Maybe it becomes too hard to see your own light.
Maybe you spent so much of your time here illuminating everyone else's lives that
Now you're tired, and just need a little rest.

I don't know.

I only know you were and are loved,
Even by those of us who only wished we could have known you better,
Given you a little more of our time.
You will always remain in memory as a reminder of good things,
An embodiment of how kind people can truly be, if they just let themselves.

It's getting late.
You must be so tired.
It's ok.
Get some rest.

Goodnight.

...the place where you would sing with arms stretched to heaven.

It's quiet here.
A cozy, dark corner in a favorite cafe.
I had been running around nonstop.
Needed a few minutes for myself.
Needed to think.
Needed to breathe.

Steam from the coffee in front of me wafting lazily,
Thin threads of moisture and bitter heat dangling in midair.

I look up from my reading,
See a very soft and feminine smile,
Round features framed in thin blonde threads
Falling lazily across a pale and attractive face.

If her lashes were any longer they would kiss her nose.
I enjoy the freckles that lightly brush her cheeks.

She says hi.
Remembers me from some performances.
I guess we had talked before.

Honestly, I don't remember her or our conversation.
I don't want to offend her, though.
I ask how she's doing.

She nervously brushes her hair back behind her ear.
Long, thin fingers.
She could easily play piano.
I see the smooth indentation on her ring finger,
a physical reminder of a wedding band that is conspicuously absent.

It took a long time for my reminder to fade.

I wonder how long it has been for her.
Then I see her eyes;
Not very long.

The things behind her eyes will take longer to heal.
But they will.
She will change.
Will become someone different.
But she'll learn to live again.
Will learn to breathe.

She tells me quietly and vaguely about her life.
Says there have been so many changes lately.
I know.

She and her sons relax nightly to my music.
She says it's crazy, because when listening she thinks that I must understand.
I do.
She doesn't tell me what is that I should understand.
But I know.
She looks at her feet, asks if I think she's just some crazy lady who's annoying a stranger.

"No."

You're not crazy. You're in pain.
You're not annoying. You're reaching out to someone, anyone, to make a connection with, because your
life has turned upside down, and the person who you have been the closest to is gone.

Your world no longer makes sense.

You're not crazy.
You'll smile again. It won't feel the same as before.
That's ok.
Maybe next time it will be better.

Now I wonder if I have been projecting my past onto her through my thoughts.
Seeing things that aren't there.
Maybe I'm the one who's nuts. I almost start laughing at myself.

She asks if she can tell me something.

"Of course."

"I'm... I'm getting divorced and everyone tells me you're kind, and have been there. I just need
someone to talk to."

I stand up and hug her tightly.
Tears falling onto my shoulder.
Long, long talk.
She will smile again.

Later I will write a song about her future,
About the day that her smile will reach her eyes again.

She lived in the twilight when we spoke of fire.

"What are your dreams?"

A friend asked me this question.
I think of it often.

I wish I knew how to tell you some of the things I've seen lately.
Words are never enough.
Music, sometimes nothing more than a glimpse.

A winter sunset over rolling hills,
The names of which I don't know.
Finding an abandoned dirt road that led towards them.
I remember climbing to the top,
Watching the sky illuminated by a torch borne of cold fire.

"What are your dreams?"

She told me that I could be the one.
We had just met.
For a single moment I wanted to believe it.
I knew better. I've heard this before.
Nothing more than simple lusty attractions masked as the stirrings of love.
I remember her sweet yet acrid kiss on a ferry heading to Seattle one night,
Her taste a subtle mingling of smoke and mint.
I remember her tears when she told me she was to wed another.
She ran away from me shortly after that
Like I was Death himself,
Finally come to claim his due.

I just wanted answers.
Too many questions in such a short amount of time.
There were none.
Just smoke and mirrors.
And a kiss.

I receive messages from her on occasion.
She wants to know how I'm doing.
I never respond.
Wouldn't know what to say.

I like the silence better.
Things are prettier without half-assed excuses.

"What are your dreams?"

I wish I could show you the lights of watery cities quietly passing in the long night.
How my heart lives somewhere between the winding paths that I follow at high speed,
And the glittering fingers that always beckon subtly
from outstretched steely hands.

I would share with you how the music playing in my car is somehow always appropriate,
No matter the mood.
Subtle swirling sound that matches the patterns of blurred pavement at night.

"What are your dreams?"

Standing face to face with someone I haven't seen in a long time.
Pleasant person.
Pleasant conversation.
I am very different. See my surroundings with different eyes.
I didn't realize how much I had changed until now.
The world seems much larger to my heart.
I can't understand how I put myself through such hell for this pretty face.
Seems so silly and inconsequential now.

I can't even begin to understand who I was back then.
If I ever had to meet something resembling that self-pitying, flimsy and weak "me",

I would kill him.

It would be the kindest mercy I could bestow on something so sad and pitiful.

"What are your dreams?"

I wish I knew how to explain how my insides light up when I perform,
How strangers can become the greatest of new friends in the space of a song.

I wish I could show you how the hugs of nieces and nephews always make the shadows disappear,
And how the closest of friends and family can tease a smile from a stubborn and sullen face.

My dreams consist of the point in my life when
The upcoming sunrise will clash with an eventual sunset,
And my mind will alight as a peaceful riot of fire
Wrapped up in a tiny song.
I will call it my future.