The city is a shard of stained glass on the horizon, thin and long, glittering with gold and red light. I am sitting on the roof you (with my fear of heights) coaxed me onto. The desert is pink and calm, shrubs dotting the field between my gaze and the shimmering glass horizon city. We are at your eccentric Dad's house. We scraped together a bowl of medical grade Cannabis from his grinder and had had the better part of a fifth of Ketel One Cirtoen Vodka which you had nabbed from a grocery store. I remember you remarking on how easy it was to steal. I remember feeling free, sitting on the roof, facing my fear of heights.
I remember too, earlier, driving, with a $100 8-ball of cocaine in the Corolla, playing a mix of disco and trap songs on a bluetooth speaker. The 8-ball was pre-divided into dime bags, which we had scored from a dealer who was happy to make less and get home early. I remember him speaking in a very "deep" way while making comparisons to the movie, "A Dog's Life," which we snickered about after the fact, while driving with the 8-ball stashed in the CD slot. I remember dumping the dime bags into chunky, crystalline, centipede lines, downed in one go through a rolled $100 dollar bill. Bag after bag, dumped out and inhaled on a copy of DFW's "Oblivion," and a Velvet Underground CD. I miss the generosity, the conversation, which I couldn't do justice here. Even retelling this brings agony, each time I recall you, I distort who you truly were, as my memories become memories of memories. I will never forget the feeling.
If you were alive, you would have turned 26 this week. Happy belated birthday! I miss you