5 Years Later

Five years ago, I sat on a cold marble bench, I watched this tree twinkle under the arch, and I got the phone call.

It still doesn’t make sense to me, that you’ll never be there again.  You were always there.  Sitting in the back row, pulling up the street, the corner booth in the back of Denny’s.  A tuft of yellow cowlick out the corner of my eye and sometimes I convince myself these five years never happened.

I could just imagine you raising hell at Burning Man, during the Gate, Perimeter and Exodus party.  I felt like I was surrounded by your presence among all the heavy metal geeks playing with explosives.  “Twinkle-shit” would have fit right in – as soon as he found the zipper on the side of those boots, wink wink.

I might miss catching you rounding the corner of my charming little Polish neighborhood in Greenpoint.  You would love this place.  As much as you were never the city type, I can’t help but feel you would have enjoyed coming here to visit.

You would have been right at home up at camp.  Between the ill-advised boating misadventures, the BB-gun spiced burgers, the fireworks in the backyard.  If there is a heaven, the only afterlife that suits your memory looks just like the lake:  you were always up in the hills, surrounded by trees and laughter.

I know wherever you are, you’re probably uncomfortable with all this sappiness, that’s not your style.  You were endlessly kind and loving, but above all else, the prankster, and I know you’ll laugh when I dedicate this song to your memory.  Never forgetting you.