43

May

1993

I got accepted into college and I am graduating in a few weeks. I don't know how I feel about it all. I know I should be happy and I am in a way but...the heaviness is still with me. That which I thought to be the oppression of high school is something else. And then I think about the others, the monsters and the things which I tried so hard to push into the back of my mind. My hands shake when I think about them.

I began to think on other things, things like freedom and liberation from the abuse of my father, the suicidal tendencies of Matt and the ridulousness of my friends rotating love life. I felt the contagious lesions grow very near my heart.

But I wouldn't talk about that.

Graduation sat upon my future like a gate to another world. I smiled at this vision in anticipation of something near normalacy. ...and I waited to see what the world had in store.

May

1993

I visited Matt for what would be the last time before college. He was sitting on the couch writing. This time I didn't ask him what he was writing. The sound of 'Are you Experienced' by Jimi Hendrix was playing and the air was filled with marijuana smoke. I didn't want a toke this time either. I just wanted to see him. His eyes were sunken and he was frowning. I sat beside him and reached toward a lone lock laying on his shoulder. He never flinched as I twirled it around my finger just like Kathy did her own hair in class. I smiled and looked up into his face.

"Matt, how are you?"

He looked at me and his eyes were strange and sad. It was a distance there that I couldn't reach, a dwindling hope of something better.

Matt opened his lips and whispered. "I think it's okay now."

He spoke like a zombie, barely audible. I swallowed the knot in my throat and touched his nose with my finger.

"I am leaving for college this fall and I was just making sure you were okay. I may be very busy this summer." I spoke sadly

Matt returned his gaze to his notebook. " I am okay."

And then I looked down. I saw a series of spirals and symbols which I remembered to be the invocation of Erzulie.

I left that house then and waited outside for my brother to pick me up.