I drove past that Winn Dixie the other day, on the way through a Taco Bell drive thru that was directly beside some makeshift carnival. That city, it’s weird because I have been gone so long but sometimes I see things and I am quickly stabbed with memories that I forgot to remember. I kept driving giving only a second’s glance to where we sat waiting so many years ago. We’d sit outside that Winn Dixie waiting for things that not even adults should wait for but we were just kids. You and your tan arms taking the wheel of my car always and we were there for each other. That night at the Pearl when you thought someone said something bad about me and in a second you were there, in his face.
Us in that red car that felt like the entire world at times, that felix da housecat song we listened to for hours and hours and tampa and the busted tire and following people who looked goth to try and find that place. We drank and drank all of what life had to offer and at the end we held the cup upside down waiting for drops of something, anything to trickle out into our mouths, but it was empty. We became empty lusting after life like pioneers. Like we were the only ones who were awake in that city. I always think about how Ben Folds plays the piano so gracefully and I think about that when I’m writing, that I want to write like that, but now more than ever I want to write like that for you, my should have been brother. I got on my knees and begged you not to leave, told you I would fill every role for you, put my hands on your face and was sick for you. And I just miss the ferocity of our lives then, I keep turning the cup over, waiting, nothing.
