Rusty Pipes

I think the hardest part of saying goodbye is that I remember your youth and that look in your eye. Blue and wild you were and you made the three of us climb, so high as we stretched like feathers our shirts to the sky. You told me a tale of that mountain air and the man around the bend. I listened then, and I wish you lived to tell the tale again. Little as she was, she took after you and she mimicked your moves though she claimed it was her own groove. I hear she wears your old peacoat and a thousand of your scarves, she kept the ring of all things. I remember when he gave you that ring, not very nice I thought, but you had no reservations and this was the life you would always want. We dreamed big things and we lost ourselves in the music, the red room was our favorite and it was there I learned the rhythm. I liked your bleached blonde hair, and the way you nonchalantly held a friends hand, so I put a streak in mine and tried holding strangers hands more frequently. and I liked that you disappeared in the night and left me your free spirit candle and your favorite beaded head wrap. I ache each year around now to know I can't call you on the phone, that a CD and a canvas is all I have of you and me....but those mountains sing still and I remember the end of the tale. It was your middle name that they said when they called me and said you were...and all I thought was no, she didn't go as far as I thought you'd go. Or what of the other mountains we didn't yet see, what about our plans to live by the sea, and yes-what about me? Summer was so brief and fall seemed long and winding. I talked in aisles crowded with books and emailed your family regards but I was only 19 and wasn't used to these things. I swore I'd be just like you one day, but I wasn't good at being you, so I could only be me. And then I remembered that you told me that me was good enough, because that's what kindred friend does when they love. I visited the mountains once alone, and went up the steep cliff again. I abandoned common sense and left my tee shirt on a twisted cactus, there alone I said your name twice to the wind and Kim, I dyed my hair bleach blonde...again.