A letter.

Dear Adrian,

Tonight we were all sitting outside having some drinks and smokes. We were talking about stuff, having a laugh and a cry when all of a sudden your brother noticed two chihuahuas entering through the front gates. Well, he thought they were chihuahuas, they were in fact kittens. You are well aware that I love the kittens. I zombie walked straight to the them. "Braaaaaiiiiinnnsss..." I said to myself but more actually"kiiiiitttttteeeeeennnnnsssss...".
Adolfo warned me not to bring the kittens close to the dogs so I listened and stayed far away, but I did pick one up, snuggle it, felt its soothing purr in the palm of my hand before tossing it back over the fence. I worried that perhaps because I touched it, its mother would reject it. I expressed my concern to the others and was told it was fine. I was also told the neighbors who owned the cats were careless with their pets by letting them roam in other people's yards, to procreate as they please, so in the case of these kittens it was their responsibility, not ours to care about them.
Adolfo said if the dogs were to wake up they would eat the kittens. I somewhat half believed him. Not because I don't believe dogs eat kittens, but because I felt it just wouldn't happen right now, in your yard, with your family dogs. Like Jen's toddler sleeping peacefully on the coach inside, I believed the dogs would not wake up for clearly it was bedtime. Even we were turning in, slowly, one by one. First Adolfo, then Meghan.
Then the kittens came back. Jen and I didn't notice until one woke up the dogs, and there it was, a full blown cat eating dog crazy time.
Each dog had a kitten in their mouth. I managed to grab one from the older dog. Jen was the only one who witnessed the whole ordeal with me. I kicked the kitten out of the dog's mouth, grabbed it, and  tossed it over the fence. When that was over, relieved I had thrown the kitten over the fence, I looked up and saw that the younger and "more dangerous" dog was still fighting with another kitten. Worse, it was the kitten I had just snuggled with earlier. At first I thought to go over there, but I also couldn't believe what I was witnessing. I was hoping to see the kitten get away. It wasn't. Jen did not try to get it. I asked her what to do- if I should go over there. She said, "no," and I just stood there as I watched the dog take the kitten away in it's mouth. She got it. Victory.
Well, anyway that totally blew my mind, and I wanted to tell you all about it. I like to believe if you were here you would have gotten the other kitten. We would have simultaneously gone into action at the moment we saw what was happening. Yes, I do. I know that's not what happened. This is just what I think. After, Jen and I came inside and started reading about owl medicine online. That's a whole other story. Of the many interesting things the website said about owls, it said to write a letter to a loved one who has passed. It wrote, "Look back at some of the "deaths" in your life. How have they helped you to become the person you are today?" So here I am. This your letter, and this is what I'm thinking about.
I realize that this letter is not as hopeless as the other letters I've written you since you died. It's definitely a better letter, yes. Okay, it's late and I'd like to go to sleep now.

Goodnight beloved Adrian,

Eleni

Your Land is Beautiful.

I get caught up on being negative-
on seeing things with a certain finality.
It's nearly impossible to berate you,
the Departed.

But it's so easy to abuse myself.

My thoughts like little fists,
fight relentlessly.
I am their target.

My soul is a punching bag
to absorb the pain,
the blame, the whole of everything.

I sit in your land. How beautiful it is.
I wonder why I'm here and you're not.

I sleep in your bed,
in your room.

I eat the food that
you should be eating.

I take a shower-

naked without you.

Going through our things is awful.

The amount of times I've stumbled upon a note of yours that says how blessed you are to have me in your life makes me want to rip my heart out and throw it in a dumpster. I am such an asshole. No, I am less than an asshole. I'm a sore pimple on a dirty rectum. I'm low. I'm down. I'm dirty.

Regrets regrets regrets!

Ahhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Baby, I miss you.

Hey! The world is beautiful!

I think sometimes that it would be in my best interest to write a little softer; to put a bit of sweetness in my sentences. I tell my friend who happens to be a poet, and an idealist, that I feel my writing is irreverent and angry. She likes it, and tells me she wants to be less of an idealist. I like her idealism. She likes my "honesty". Often, it makes me sad when I look back at what I've written. I come off as someone who believes that nothing is sacred. How untrue.

Why can't I write about rainbows without smearing them in shit?

I've seen rainbows. I love rainbows. I smile anytime I see one. I practically go gaga when there's two in the sky. I'm a grinning idiot telling strangers to look up and behold the double glory. Yet, I don't write about rainbows, or soft winds, or about the wonders of the natural world. Instead, I carelessly toss out tragedies, regard them with flippancy, and fasten thoughts with an expletive or two.
What do I have to complain about, really?

I need a time machine.

Nothing too fancy. Just something to get me back to June 28th, 2010.

I have no interest in killing Hitler or preventing the Twin Towers from falling. As for dinosaurs, I can wait until I die to get a good look at them. I just need a plain, no frills time machine. I don't even need a radio. All it needs to have is the capacity to travel back to June 28^th, 2010. I'd like to arrive in the early evening. I would skip out on my night class and instead plan a surprise dinner date—complete with dessert and complimentary blow job for my cuddle foot. His June 28th self would really appreciate it.

Dear God,

Please have someone invent a time machine. Let it be invented preferably by next month. Also, please let the inventor be a close friend of mine so that I can use it.

Amen.

This blows.

I am still mad you're not here. I'm mad that we are now the tragic examples of love lost to our mutual friends. I'm mad that we are the reason people we know hold their lovers just a little bit tighter at night. I'm mad about all of this. Why couldn't we have kept our original positions as the power couple everyone had already gotten used to?

I know this anger will pass, and like the gas in my stomach that turns into farts I will be relieved. Yes, I just wrote that. What else am I to compare my anger to? This isn't rage. This isn't violent. This anger is like a bloated stomach filled with lots of undigested things.

This is for real.

Everyone is getting married. The world keeps moving.
I decided I am going to start wearing head scarves again.

Today we went to the beach, where we were first graciously visited by a pervert who propped his chair along side our beach sheet so that he can show us his testicles whilst drinking a can of Budweiser, and then we got to watch a drunk husband punch his drunk wife of twenty six years in the face.

We should have gone to Governor's Island to play capture the flag instead. It was Commandos verses Zombies. How did we pass that up? Why did we pass that up? We so wanted to be Commandos.

I have several theories as to how we ended up at Robert Moses instead.

Governor's Island is far.
Beaches are usually nice.
Capture the flag is too sad to play without you.

I want to play capture the flag with you. I remember when we played captured the flag in Blue Lake, you hid your hat underneath a car so you wouldn't lose it. I wasn't with you when you left it that night, but we were together when you picked it up the next day. We were walking, and a light bulb went off in your head: "my hat!' You walked over to the car we were passing, crawled half way under it, and out you came with a hat in your hand. Smiling big at me, our eyes making firm contact, you then joyfully placed it on your head.

What a catch.

I am mixing memories. Everything about you feels like a dream.

Brains for marshmallows

Viking funeral, shuffle board,

tiny bladder, your ex-girlfriends

These were the things of relevance tonight.

I had always wanted a viking funeral.
Now, I don't care much
for such postmortem pageantry.
Having walked down the aisle
behind your casket,
thinking about the wedding
that should have been; the
somber eyes of our friends
and relatives gazing upon
our sorry scene, I have no
desire in entertaining thoughts
of my future funeral.

Tonight,
We played shuffle board at the bar
that used to be a school house
Walt Whitman taught in.
I realized my bladder had shrunk
tremendously as I made my fifth
trip to the bathroom. My ability
to recite the graphic, handwritten
messages covering the walls of the stall
became quick entertainment for everyone,
while proving you could still be a poet
despite Walt's absence.
Tonight,
You were the bonfire of our gathering.
We sat around, gazing into
our shared and separate memories of you.
We tried to recall the names
of all the women you had slept with.
We knew it was nine, but could only name five.

the missing ladies taken to the grave.
we melted our brains over your flames,
trying to satisfy our hunger
for you.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

I am thinking that I have a lot of anger and unanswered questions. Questions like, "Why are you dead? Am I a bad person? Why us? "

Yes, I know that tsunamis take out whole villages, and that woman get their noses cut off in other countries. I know of mothers who lose their only teen sons to drug abuse, and hear of people shooting store clerks for a fistful of dollars. I know the world is chaotic. I understand that sad, mind-boggling things happen to people.

But, why are YOU dead?

Did I complain too much? Is it because you missed my cooking? Is it because, because, because? Days keep passing by and I try to reason with myself that it's not my fault. It's my fault, isn't it? Dang it! How am I to muster the strength to live another day without you by my side?
Your brother and I sit glued to our laptops. I have no clue what he's really looking at or doing, but I don't bother to ask. Neither does he. So, ho hum, here we are. Stoic faced, droopy eyed, heart broken saps over you. I'm sorry. Your brother is not a sap.
Is this fate?
My aunt from Greece believes that people are born with their lives already written into their DNA. Fuck. That doesn't help much. A lot of us believe God took you so that you may live amongst the greatest in the City of Angels- not to be confused with the city of Los Angeles, but another city that has the same name. It's a hell of a lot better.
So, that's it. It's because you're a lot nicer than us, and more useful. That's why you're not here. You just happened to possess such a wonderful, loving soul that God felt you no longer had to worry about earthquakes, suicide bombers, turbulence, cancer, spontaneous combustion, hemorrhoids, drowning, pink eye, bad acid trips, hangovers, venereal diseases, losing a leg, losing an eye, losing your hair, uncomfortable underwear, jock itch, and crabby girlfriends. That's some honor.
Lucky you.

Adventures in Grieving?

Adventure is probably not the best way to describe my grief, but taking my sister's advice, here I am trying to write a blog entitled, Adventures in Grieving. The title is her suggestion. As you can see this blog is not Adventures in Grieving.

Booted Butterfly is a random-o blog I created on June 21st, 2010. It was really late and I should have been sleeping instead. I was at home in the apartment I shared with my fiancee. We lived in Brooklyn. I don't know how nostalgia works, but on that night I was thinking of Lisa Bernstein. She and I were close friends, and once in her life, I was the object of her desire. She wrote me wonderful love letters. How I loved receiving her love letters! First off, love letters were rare to come by in high school, and hers were especially well-written. She also sang. She was a karaoke queen. Her voice was brilliant, and soulful. Lisa and I maybe shared a kiss or two, but we never fell in love. It wasn't meant to be. Looking back, I think now that it was the depths of her inner pain that gave Lisa's voice its mesmerizing sparkle. That's because for as long as I knew Lisa, she longed. She longed for something incomprehensible- a potent form of love that one only craves when they can't love themselves. This would explain a lot of things about Lisa. Whenever she fell in love, she suffered for it. I always wanted Lisa to find love. More specifically the domesticating kind of love. The one that makes you go to home depot, and buy hammocks. The one that makes you shit with the bathroom door open while your partner cooks breakfast, and talks to you about heirloomtomatoes. I don't know if Lisa ever felt this kind of love. We slowly lost touch. Our connection hanged perilously in the hands of mutual friends neither of us really talked to, and on the aging social networks I hardly ever visited. Then Lisa died. She ended her life. A mutual friend had called.
Fourteen years ago, Lisa had written that I was like, "a butterfly with boots on." Fourteen years later, I see how much sentiments can stick with you. I mourned Lisa topically. She had been so far away from my experiences that while alive she had already become a memory, so her death was sad, but distant from my then current happy circumstances.
For me, heaven had come to earth.
I was in Love!
Head over heels,
blinded by,
beautiful, fantastic love.

A country song for Adrian

I'm getting me ol' wings ready.
I'm giving them a brand new shine.
They're goin' to be bright and steady
for that sweet love o' mine.

He's flown so high above me
that I must follow suit,
and break beyond these boundaries
that laid me though and through.

I'd rather nest than take flight
I know this now, I do.
But without my baby to spoon,
I just don't have the right.

I'm getting me ol' wings ready.
I'm giving them a brand new shine.
They're goin' to be bright and steady
for that sweet love of mine.

My baby's somewhere peaceful,
beyond my line of sight,
A place that is so beautiful,
heavenly, and bright.

Yes, I'll make it through each day
that comes for me to pass.
But I'll miss my sweet baby.
I'll miss my baby, yeah.

I'm getting me ol' wings ready.
I'm giving them a brand new shine.
They're goin' to be bright and steady
for that sweet love of mine.

August 6th, 2010

On your 39th day,

I wait for your 40th.
That’s tomorrow.

Some say it’s the last day
you can visit-
the last time you
come down from the sky
like a meteor and
shower us with
your good presence.

Fuck them.
I know you better.

My address is
my heart.
Do you know how
to send letters
to my heart?

Yes, I think you do.

Your garden grows.
Your tomatoes have formed.
They survived an
uncompromising,
sweltering,
unrelenting
New York City summer.