Requiem

Originall written February 8, 2007

For what you have done for me, take pride that you have done it well. Yet I cannot allow you to come any further with me. You did your best, an honor amongst us thieves, but I simply cannot be trusted from here on out.

How did we come to this point, where did this Battle of Evermore come from? Like all good stories should end, it began with those words Until That Day Then. Those days never registered to me, try as I might the memories are lost to the daze we were left with. So many times ready, accepting, spinning off the planet.

In The Beginning, we returned to the downward spiral, to that day in the national spotlight where my influence reached unimaginable heights. We returned to that night in D.C., where we had begun our journey all those years ago, reveling in our victories of the day. We had conquered the national committee by lying and scheming. We used everyone for the sole purpose of making sure the one true soul among us would be elected, and she made all the difference in the world that day. The whiskey flowing, the Irish dancing before us, the minor league opposition of Joe, Cameron and Tyler laid waste before me, their hearts collectively crushed by an angry prom date. That same night my grandfather fell to his death.

The days went on, weeks had past. John, Chip, Dave, Aleks and Shea had taken me out to the city, to tear one up in the way of the Irish. The night quickly took a turn for the worse and all was black again. I awoke in Shea’s basement with no memory of how I had gotten there or what happened the night before. The first night I had slept soundly in weeks.

The days went on, weeks had past. Time meant nothing anymore as the days bled into each other like the colors in a red sky dusk. I ran away from the north shore, down to the land of the surreal in Orlando to get away from this reality. I found myself traveling around Illinois searching for those that I had written off long ago. I found my way to Missouri and said the first and last of my goodbyes. I came home to Kansas where the ghosts of days of future past were waiting for me.

Months had past. A lifetime. What makes this different is that it happened to you, and instead of accepting the loss and moving on, you changed, withdrew from the world and became a caricature of those emotions repressed within you since you were young, when that big-boned Irish hunter first appeared before you; the animosity, jealousy, hatred and vengeance. The Big Bad was born.

The leprechauns were as real as the night and day. The inevitable consequence of an extended addiction. Our visions crystallized into what had to be done.
Awakened by the voices that shouldn’t be on the other side of the world; I speak to the ghosts of the life I left behind.

Am I the only one that is allowed to see them? As real to me as I am to you, sitting on the corner of my bed, standing against the wall, leaning against my closet…they are here and they are watching every word I type, every sound I make in this room so far away from home.

How can I answer them when…where have you been, why did we leave, why can’t you come home to us…because I’m not here, I’m not what you thought I was…where…none of this is real…we are just walking outside of our existence, thinking the realities would blend together, holding the worlds apart no longer, wondering if we could ever say the things we meant again but knowing…knowing it doesn’t matter anymore…because we are gone, lost among the stars once more…

I got to get away, got to get them home. They sit here and talk to me…whisper as if I was one of them… thoughts in the wind becoming of me which way the ghosts will travel tonight and they sit here, and they are always with me, and I can’t fight them off, I can’t order them to leave, we are coupled together in the sins of the past and I just can’t let them go. We’re going down, we’re going down with them. The beginning of the end. Its time though, time to stop the slide.

And they will forget. We can only hope they do. I can never go back to that time. To make amends with its absence I recreate that life in a new world, and in time, that as well will become obsolete. We will move on, and recreate that life once again, and over and over the cycle continues. They will forget, but I will always be haunted by what was and what should never be. They tell me I have a purpose, they tell me…I have to put the band back together.