I tried to find myself on the Internet today. Was it odd. I was a musician, a poet, and a dead porn star. I read my poems and I could have written them, and the music I made was heavily influenced by Tangerine Dream. "Optical Race" by Tangerine was the first CD I ever bought. I began to wonder about the pornography thing. I began to wonder if there aren't alternate realities out there, that maybe I was living as multiple people or had a split personality and didn't know it. I wondered how much I really knew about myself, whether I am unique as I thought I was. I have a weird name -I mean how many of me should there have been?
Often I search for people I lost contact with over the Internet. There was a woman I worked with in Africa. A woman who I thought I loved very much - I did love her, but we only had one wonderful night together. We didn't make love. She painted a portrait of my face, and we laughed about the lives we had in America. We talked about Purple and Orange and sunsets, and ate M&M's. She was a Christian when I wasn't and she castigated me about despising the book of Corinthians. She pointed out the amazing love that was spoken of in 1 Corinthians 13. She was right, and what I once loved and grew to hate I love again. Long after that night I bought her books on color. She was fascinated with Colors, and since I taught Physics she asked me if I could teach her all I knew about color. She was an artist and I loved her laugh, I loved her spirit, and I loved the richness of her life. I was a Physics teacher, and a writer, and loved to sketch. None of these held water for me. I am only a vain and selfish man. It was ever about me, and I am so so sick of dwelling on me. I never found her on the Internet.
I have forgotten her voice, her laugh, her eyes, her face. I don't even trust the memories of her. They are probably all wrong, and I'm sure after a space of ten years I have changed things. I never had a picture of her. And I will never see her again I suppose. I keep imagining us meeting, in some unexpected place, but I don't even know where she got off to. She pushed her way into my life, and then flew away. The clouds of Tanzania were wonderful. The white towering cumulous clouds that sat in that blue, blue sky. Cerulean Blue. Azure. She is always the warm sunny afternoon. She was like a dream, and maybe a thousand years from now we will meet in Heaven. She grew angry with me because I was messed up. I've come to realize that I want to draw all my self worth through the acceptance of those I love. I followed her around like a wounded dog. I burdened her with the strength I drew from her. The day at the port, she was cruel behind her sunglasses. That was the day we said goodbye, and though we saw each other after that I never let her in. We had come too close too fast. It was too intense, like a match flaring up full of the fury and energy of fire, and then dying. We argued over stupid things. Words have always got me in trouble. Maybe I am too scary. She said to me once "just tell me, don't write anymore words." The last letter I received from her was a patchwork of crossed out sentences. I don't even have that.
The years have flown away like so many dead leaves in a fall breeze, and I am left with my words and myself.
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