omigod my sweet, dear friend Melissa who i so adore rocks so much…
it’s weird how little actual hanging out we actually did. i used to pick her up for work, but outside of that, i only remember one time early on in our friendship when we went to the Moto Lounge and saw a swing band after having dug some marvelous poetry at the cool coffee spot (what was it called?), where of all the poets and freaks the one i remember most vividly was this bereted cat (who wore his tam like i do, not like a normal beret but swept back like a tall hat that’s fallen over from the heavy thoughts comin up like swirls of smoke from the chimney of the mind), who told a really funny story about a neighbor he’d once had… (i also remember from that night being kinda disappointed to learn that she had a boyfriend, hee hee… she’s really some catch (yes!) and some day she’ll find someone, amongst all the other bastards of the world, who truly appreciates her and they’ll the both of ’em be very happy indeed!)
and when she left Jacksonville, evil city, how heartbreaking it was… such a wonderful soul on that one, such a truly beautiful human being right there… closest to a real living, breathing bodhisattva that i’ve ever seen (yes, brothers and sisters! it’s absolutely TRUE, i swear on all the vedas and upanishads that there really exists one such as that!) …talk about angel-headed hipsters! she cares, and therefore must be burdened with carrying, so much, so much… she told me tonight of some of her troubles, and she sounded so upright and good, but i just can’t stand the thought of someone so truly awe-some as her being brought down by the world, evil place, birthplace of sorrow. it makes me sadangry that she has to suffer so much when others who don’t FEEL things, who just don’t care about people and the world and the Human Condition, those bastards don’t have to put up with as much hardness and sorrow.
and i worry about her sometimes, because of that. i worry because i know what it’s like to care way too much about the human condition, the toil and bother of sweaty ants like we are, all wearing our own hairshirts and troubling sadly across the working-fields to our hotplate indignities and careful humiliations. it’s tough to juggle participation with observation, and impossible to not “do it with feeling”, always with feeling… backbreaking amounts of feeling that stoop the shoulders and curl the shins in its way.
it’s kind of funny that whenever i used to say that Reptile Girl was my best friend (how wrong i was!), i used to think of Melissa instead, or rather: i’d think of how Melissa is really the one true friend i’ve had who really was the best ever, and just that that particular girl was (i thought) rapidly getting closer and closer to that magic line. …but how odd! i’ve just always been incredibly comfortable around her (shit, more than maybe anyone), even though we somehow managed to not actually do much hanging out after work, but i consider her to be a real close friend nonetheless, for the sheer joy and warmth and damn near mindlessly meaningful happiness she always brought me.
and god! how she says the nicest things to make me swell all up and feel warm and happy and loved! christ, nobody’s ever done that so well, not ever…
love that lil’ lambchop!
