A Raven Wing Memory

Raven's wing hair, complexion as un-muddied snow, thin as a willow branch - Renee was my life and love. Sure, we were just Sophomores in High School. Sure, we didn't know anything about how the real world worked - having lived on military bases for most of our lives; but we knew that we were in love. Renee was quiet, she kept to herself and her books mostly, but when she was with her friends, what few friends there were, her laugh was infectious and full of life and mirth - a surprise coming from one looking like she.

We first met on the steps of the lobby of the high school, our eyes meeting across the long hall before our feet carried us towards each other. Our friends knew each other, so it was only natural that we should meet as we did. Standing next to her I looked dumpy and rotund. Her voice when she first spoke was that of church bells on a quiet winter night - clear, musical, and perfect. Our friends could instantly see that we were meant for each other, even if we couldn't, so they made sure we were together often.

I guess it was only natural that with our taking to each other, we began dating pretty soon. Our first date was a really sappy romantic drama - but before I got to hold her hand under the cover of dark within the movie theater, I had to deal with the great bear of a man that her father was. I sat in the living room with him, waiting on Renee to finish up in her room with her mother - fretting to be just so for her and my first date. I remember trying not to say something stupid, let alone look idiotic. After a lifetime-filled few minutes, she was ready and we left. The walk to the theater was but a few minutes, but that seemed to go by in a lightning flash - both of us walking on clouds nine through thirteen. We got into the theater, and as the lights dimmed for the previews, our hands met, sparks began to dance between the micro-spaces between our fingers, and true love was finally settling in. It was only when she kissed me half-way through the film that I knew that I was in love.

It was a couple weeks after our first date that I realized not all was right in the world. Wars, famine, and destruction of humankind was happening outside my bubble, but within the tremors of domestic abuse began to rise to the surface. The odd bruise, random scratches. Renee would pass it off as clumsiness and play-fighting with her younger brother. I bought and ate every word, never once questioning Paradise. As the bruises and scratches began appearing, she began distancing herself from me and from her friends. She rarely spoke or messaged her friends, and just barely talked with me. Renee cloistered herself into herself - making the smallest sighting from a tight smile or a longing look. Being how old I was, I figured it had to be something other than depression - it had to be school, stress, family, anything other than internal pain...

We made it work for a whole school year, but at the end, we didn't know each other anymore. Renee had taken herself out of school and began homeschooling. She no longer talked to me or any of her other friends. After we split up, I saw her once again a couple months later, leaving the on-base library very early in the morning. When I went to follow her to talk to her, she seemed to just disappear into thin air. A ghost that once held my very heart and soul.

Then one day during the spring semester, I got a call during class. It went straight to voice mail. Then I got a text message from Renee:

"Today is my last. Goodbye."

Fearing the worst I ran. I busted out of school, busted off of the base into the great foreign world, and ran to her house a few miles away. Out of breath, tired, sore, muscles screaming in pain; I knocked on her door. No answer. Parents were out at work, and the younger brother was at school. Knocked again. Rang the doorbell. Heard the bell echo throughout the apartment but no answer. Another message:

"Bye."

It was highly illegal, but nothing stopped me when I broke down the door to the apartment. Silence greeted me; eerie listless silence hanging dead in the air. I shouted Renee's name at the top of my lungs, begging for a response. The sound of water dripping from the bathroom was my only response - so I went to investigate. What I saw, my ghost was just that...

She lay in the tub, even paler than before, her whole body being drained of color, her raven's wing hair wet and clinging to her lifeless body. Two deep cuts from which her life bled away were on her wrists, having cut a major vein. The bathtub, having started with water, now held more blood than water within it - a deep passion and anger filled red diluting slowly throughout the tub. I cried out and held her close - her body cold, the life drained out of her. My tears fell against her skin, my cries fell against silent ears, her eyes closed in a look of respite and final peace.

The neighbors heard the door being broken down, and my calls for her. They, fearing a burglary, called the military police, with which they responded in time perfectly. The came in, found us in the bathroom, and did their job. I was put in the back of the squad car and eventually released when her death was ruled as a suicide minutes later. The medics came and took her body away. Her parents arrived shortly after. Her mother crying out for her dead daughter, her younger brother crying out in confusion and loss. Her father came up to me - I began steeling myself in case his anger and sadness finally broke and he would hit me - but instead he embraced me and held me close, his tears fell heavy as they landed on my shoulder. Her mother and younger brother came over and held me as well - but no tears came to me, no sadness or anger erupting out of me.

When I held Renee in my arms, held her body close, all of my tears fell. All of my anger, my sadness, my confusion, and loss poured from me - mixing with the blood and bathwater. But then, being held by her family, I was nothing more than block of emotionless stone - a flesh and blood emotional anchor for everyone else, when I was lost in an ocean of emotions.

I went to therapists, to wise and holy men and women. To grief counselors, to fellow members of society who had lost friends and loved ones to suicide. I went and saw anyone possible for answers, and all answers were conflicting - it was selfish, it was wrong, it was humane, it was the only possible thing she could do. Nothing made sense anymore, with every self-depreciating question attacking me everyday - What if I had run a little faster? What if I had gotten there sooner? What if I loved her a little more? What if I saw the signs of abuse and depression?

So here I am now, a grown man in college. I've learned to pick myself up and move on. I've learned to not let my past be my destruction - but there are days where the memories of Renee knock the wind out of me, knock me onto my ass, take me off my feet by surprise. So, when those days come, I've learned to write a little faster, drink a little more, and pray a little harder that one day I'll realize that no matter how fast I ran, no matter when I got there, no matter how much I loved her; there wasn't anything I could do, because when I did, was when I was supposed to get there. There is no changing it. Renee made a decision and it wasn't my decision to make for her. She loved me enough to tell me and talk to me one last time. It could have been any one in the world, but I was the only person in her world worth telling.

I miss Renee, I don't bear any fault or grudges or wrong-doing against her. I know others will say that her solution was a permanent fix to a temporary problem, but for her, there was no other option, no other way to end the pain, no way to be free. I don't blame her - I just miss her. I miss my raven's wing haired, snow white complexion, willow branch thin love.

I'll see her eventually, I just needs to get through today, tomorrow, and the rest of my life until I see her again.

Slaying the Beast of Our Pasts (collaboration with Felicia Quinn)

She said I was her knight in shining armor,

       I said the armor is a little beat-up, 

       rusty, and kinda worn, 

       and she said that's the best kind around.

       

I said she was my lady so gentle,

       she said that she swore so hard;

       Satan and sailors were taking notes

       on pen and pad;

       and I said that's the best kind possible.

       

We saw the maleficent beast of our pasts,

       it said we would never make it work;

       that our hearts were too shattered,

       maimed and destroyed;

       so we slew the beast with our love.

It's Time (For Me To Be Me)

Who knew that time would be running out for us,
that our lives were not what we wanted them to be,
now you're Superman and I'm your kryptonite,
now you're on the pedestal and I'm holding you high.

But it's time,
It's time to change myself,
to skip to a new track,
to beat out a new beat on my drum,
it's time for a fresh remix,

Who say that the mighty have fallen,
Who saw that your plan backfired,
Your heart was the one that got broken,
No longer am I under your spell,
My dreams with you were really nightmares,
No longer am I in love with you.

But it's time,
It's time to change myself,
To skip to a new track,
To beat out a new beat on my drum,
It's time for a fresh remix,

Who lost it all that night,
Was it you or was it I?
You're walking with your head high
And I'm ready to erupt into flames.
You picked yourself up, and you carried on,
I'm barely getting up, barely hanging on,

But it's time,
It's time to change myself for the better,
To rise out of the ashes of these flames,
To beat this death creeping in,
It's time for me to let go of boyish things,
It's time for me to become a man.

It's time,
It's time,
It's time,
It's time for the bells to ring out,
It's time for drums to beat,
It's time for the choir to sing,
It's time for me to be me,
For me to be me.

But it's time,
It's time to change myself,
To skip to a new track,
To beat our a new beat on my drum,
It's time for a fresh remix.