For the past few weeks my life has been in limbo. Well, really it has been like this for as long as I can remember. Parts of it make sense and seem to have a path before them who's end point gives me a smile and feel secure, where others can be so immediately daunting that I would rather pile them up in the 'to-do' corner of my room. Perhaps the layout of ones bedroom has much to show for the way that they life the world outside of it.

Chris dying perhaps was the start of this most recent stall period. Last weekend I spent my Saturday helping to put back together a scarred home with some of the friends left behind by this lovely boy, and others still who have come to love Nikki Shannon and feel the need to protect her from what they can in her son’s absence.

The day he died I saw the bathroom for the first time and it was the perfect boys bathroom. Cologne out on the dusty sink counter, his glasses smudgy and perched on the rim of porcelain, hairs of unknown origin and a girls bikini hanging over the shower curtain bar. The tub was filthy and the garbage can beside the toilet was filled with junk. The whole house was a mess that day, signs of his life everywhere; Primus was paused halfway through some song with an endlessly long title on his still-running computer, bed all messed up and gross, and one of the boxed Family Guy seasons on the coffee table by the couch. I was awash with this huge sense of regret when I saw Nologo out on that table too. There was so much alike in he and I but I missed my chance. His bookcases were covered with dust, sprinkled over all of it’s contense save for a few voids where novel or dvd’s had once lived. Right by his computer, at waist level, was a cigar box; the type you use to keep them moist or something. Under its glass cover was a photo of him and Jason when they were just kids. It was over exposed and looked like they were at their first drinking party or something. That box is the one that now holds his ashes.

All of the proof of his life, stacked as he saw fit, was piled in the center of the room come last Saturday with a new coat of paint on the walls.
Jason, Jesse and I built a deck that day. Jesse's dog Lucy kept humping his pant leg and the guy didn't seem at all phased; almost a little proud at how gross it was. The boys wouldn't stop asking me questions about my sex life. Chris apparently didn't let Jesse meet me because he wanted to keep me from this shit.

Chris saved Jesse's life a couple of times so I learned as we lingered in Chris's bedroom at one point in the afternoon. Lucy was on the bed by the pillow curled up. Jesse was selling coke in London when the two were living together. Chris could put up with that much but said the second he started selling crack, he would’ve been out of there.

I need to stop running away from people and clean my goddammed room.