Three years ago he offered to quit drinking, for me, because he sensed that was why I would not accept his offers to be my boyfriend. Why didn't I say YES FUCKING STOP DRINKING? Maybe if I had, he'd be alive.
But I didn't want a boyfriend, so I said its not my place to tell others what to do with their bodies. I guess this is what he wanted to do with his body. I could have been more aggressive about his health. I could have pulled him aside and told him more than just "I'm worried about you." I could have hidden his alcohol and threatened him into rehab. But instead I abandoned him.
He was part of the impetus that made me quit binge drinking. I was worried I would die if I continued participating in his drinking. I saved myself. I wish he would have joined me.
I have a book he bought for me that day at the bookstore. The funny mask he mailed me in 2020. I have a phone full of karaoke videos of him singing George Michael horribly, chopping garlic for dinner with the arms that will never again hold me, sitting together on the sacred rock overlooking my childhood lake, his arm holding the champagne. We had a whole lot of fun and magic, for a little while.
I can't understand this. My brain is refusing.
I saw his skin yellowing, his liver failing. I knew it was bad. In August I rubbed his back when he talked about how the politics in town were getting to him. I wish we could talk so bad. I have an intense desire to go to his house and sit on his couch and just.... see him, alive. It hurts.
I cried all day the day he died, before I knew that he had passed. I felt it. The moon was full. I felt so much pain that I canceled seeing my friend that day. I am sure my heart was pounding like that all week because I knew before I knew. I never had a panic attack last that long. We are connected, I felt him dying. My heart knew.
1:29 p.m. - 2022-10-24