Last Night (June 09)

I've never driven at 4 in the morning before. The sky is blue, the birds are out, the air is fresh, and I am not sad.

This is me crawling into bed at 5 AM, with greasy hair and un-brushed teeth, thinking of my last night with Luke.

He is not special, he is not unique, and neither were the others. But like all the rest I cared for him, and hung on his every word, and told him my darkest fears, while he filled my head with music and movie trivia.

We sat by the mighty Merrimack on the spot of concrete that Jon and I had chosen not 2 months before. "I sat here once," I mentioned. He didn't care. He lay, staring upwards at the pink sky, lips slightly parted, contemplating the light pollution. He was maybe 6'2 with shaggy blond hair and a flannel jacket over a blue tee-shirt. I was shivering from the chill of the wind. He didn't notice. My pocket watch told me it was 1AM.

The river looked calm and we repeatedly practiced Numerology. I taught him everything I knew.

By the time my clock had struck 2AM, we were tiptoeing across an abandoned suspension bridge. The air was muggy and smelled of natural gas. I looked up as I walked next to him towards the sky, towards the green lines of the bridge, somebody's bridge, some town's bridge, left to never be crossed, and felt the beams under my fingers with their gigantic bolts and green finish.

Then it was 3AM and a freight train was passing in front of my car. We rolled down my windows and turned down the music to listen to it hum against the rails. "I want to know where its going." He giggled and made a snide remark about my obsession with trains.

It was 3:30 AM when he grabbed my hand and I had to politely explain to him that I was never going to be his. "You're 3 months too late."

I made him pinky swear he would be my friend. I made him promise this wouldn't be the end.

Its the end. But for the sake of every Brett Boland in the entire world I have promised to "NEVER HURT ANOTHER SOUL"

I have the scars to prove I mean it.