Whoever you are, wherever you are… I’m starting to think we are a lot alike. Human beings spinning on blackness. All wanting to be seen, touched, heard, paid attention to. My loved ones are everything to me here. In the last year or 3, I’ve screamed at my creator. Screamed at clouds in the sky. For some explanation. Mercy maybe.  For peace of mind to rain like manna somehow. 4 Summers ago, I met somebody.  I was 19 years old. He was too.  We spent that Summer and the Summer after, together.  Everyday almost.  And on the days we were together, time would glide.  Most of the day I’d see him, and his smile.  I’d hear his conversation and his silence.. Until it was time to sleep.  Sleep I would often share with him.  By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping.  No negotiating with the feeling. No choice. It was my first love.  It changed my life.  Back then, my mind would wander to the women I had been with.  The ones I cared for and thought I was in love with.   I reminisced about the sentimental songs I enjoyed when I was a teenager.  The ones I played when I experienced a girl too quickly.  Imagine being thrown from a plane.  I wasn’t in a plane though.  I was in a Nissan Maxima.  The same car I packed up with bags and drove to Los Angeles in.  I sat there and told my friend how I felt.  I wept as the words left my mouth.  I grieved for them, know I could never take them back for myself.  He patted my back.  He said kind things.  He did his best, but he wouldn’t admit the same.  He had to go back inside soon. I was late and his girlfriend was waiting for him upstairs.  He wouldn’t tell me the truth about his feelings for me for another 3 years.  I felt like I’d only imagined reciprocity for years.  Now imagine being thrown from a cliff.  No. I wasn’t on a cliff. I was still in my car telling myself it was gonna be fine and to take deep breaths.  I took the breaths and carried on.  I kept up a peculiar friendship with him because I couldn’t imagine keeping up my life without him.  I struggled to master myself and my emotions.  I wasn’t always successful.