It’s that time of year again, when sadness clings to my soul all day. It’s been 9 years since my best friend and first love went on to the next adventure, leaving behind a blazing legacy that those close to her can’t help but celebrate. I still feel like she is with me in my dark hours, as well as the light.
We met on the internet on ICQ back when it was still a taboo thing to do. I saw her post on one of the chat request boards her post simply said: “I am bored and depressed,” so I sent her a message, perhaps not very romantic, but certainly a very teenage thing to do. Before long we chatted online everyday, for hours, eventually the phone.
She was passionate about justice, we went to protests against Bush together. I know she would be right there on the front lines of the Resistance today. She was never afraid to take risks, and helped lay the foundation for me to break out of my paranoid shell. She was full of energy and life. She loved science, was very studious, wicked smart, and was about to enroll in the biotech certificate program right before she passed.
I have known many people who have died before their time, but she is the only one, that for long as I live, I will always miss with the intensity of yesterday.
Well, Pri, I just know you are digging on some Cosmic Blues with Janis and your other heros, soaking up existance as you always have, just on another plane. I miss you girl, we all do. That hole you left will never be filled, but I wouldn’t want it too; people aren’t replaceable. And if you are still wondering, I would trade a whole mountain of tomorrow’s for one single yesterday, at least for you.
And here is it, the poem I have rewritten scores of times, deemed finished. Your Violet Painted Elegy.
Violet Painted Elegy
Staring out at the corner
of Center and Shattuck for hours.
I only see clearly,
the corporeal illusion of you,
next to me,
dark, wild hair in your eyes.
I reach out to you,
like a dying man reaches for God.
The thin Greek owner
of Pie in the Sky,
taps my shoulder,
you’re gone.
I walk onto Center Street.
There you are again,
a swirling mist,
varying shades of violent violet—
I know it’s you.
I follow your purple hue up the street,
past Bongo Burger, Top Dog, Starbucks,
we cross Oxford, onto Berkeley’s campus.
Campanile chimes its welcome to us.
The familiar minty, pine-honey
of the Eucalyptus grove
wraps around me,
leaving only your purple silhouette
dancing in the medicinal twilight.
Oh, how many ounces of Purple Kush
did we experience here?
Remembering the joint in my pocket, I light it,
offering you the first drag.
you become solid,
your exhalation prismatic.
I reach out to you,
shaking your head,
you point to an approaching,
Maglite.
Hard metal taps my shoulder—
gently, aggressive.
“Wake up, move on.”
I jerk, startled.
Eucalyptus streamers
scratch me back to
opaque certainty.
You’re gone.
Chestnut Cowboy 