nine years ago there wasn’t any grass here

   When I first started this, nine years ago, I loved another than I do now, and I imagine that in another nine years there will be someone different in my life. sharing good times and bad, not for decades, or years, but brief months, short weeks… in nine years time this heart has felt many pains and countless pleasures, happy smiles, and tear filled eyes. life and death dance together until they blur, his white suit, her black dress, one grey shadow on all this earth. birds fly south, birds fly north, new life grows old and is replaced again and again… and I see it all, the wrinkles that grow on the faces of my father, my mother, the white hairs that poke out of my friend’s hair. I still look at the stars and wonder what’s there, I think about all the time, all the memories of this almost decade… it seems so short, it seems as if it was always yesterday, that it’s only hours away, not years… my god children are growing, my niece can speak, they were just bellies last week. rust grows, and weeds rise, dust settles, time flies… there were ARE so many things I wanted to say, that I thought of far after the moment arrived to say them. I thought about her apology, she said, "I’m sorry if I ever stole anything from you." I told her no… then realized, she meant my heart. I wish I could say that there has only been nine in all this time, but that would be a lie, and for the most part I’ve tried to keep to the truth with this diary… my message in the bottle to myself. nine years… a couple of thousand drinks ago, a million cigarettes, and countless loves away.

                    Eric w. Desselle