(March 11, '12)

There are some things that I want to remember. Some nights that I want to write into wet cement. At the entrance to the Starbucks in St. Marks someone had once written “Time and Space Died Yesterday” and I’ve been scratching that over my skin ever since. Last time I checked, only ‘sterday’ was left. Nothing lasts, said Mr. Herodes. Nothing lasts, states the Law of Impermanence. Even memories fade. Even tonight will die away. Eventually all of our lives are washed off. We’ll all lose ourselves sometime, somewhere. We all die in the darkest alleys of ourselves, with a gun pointed between our eyes. I’m seventeen and addiction runs in the blood of both sides of my family and two years ago my uncle died of a heroine overdose. The papers said that he had spent eight million on drugs, but I’ve long stopped believing in the stories they write about my family. The last time I spoke to him he held my hands in his and kissed my forehead and told me that I was ‘fucked, but wonderful.’ Maybe that’s the kindest thing anybody could ever say to you — maybe the most beautiful compliment is one that understands both sides of the story, one that turns you over like a stone in a palm and sees the destruction and what came before the storm. Before my uncle died he looked at me and told me that I was fucked and wonderful, and I’ll always love him for that.

Write it on my epitaph. Write it on my skin. It’s all I ever want to be known for.