The words for Stream of Consciousness Saturday are: In other words.

In Other Words, I Love You

In other words, take my hand…

Are we sculpted by our choices?

This boy. I took his hand when I was fourteen, we made love when we were sixteen, he left me when we were nineteen for glittering lights and fame although he loved me.

“Don’t bring her,” his bandmates said.

“She’s everything.”

“You’re nineteen. You know shit about love. We gotta be single. We gotta attract bitches.”

He believed them.

In other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.

I don’t know where he is now. His baby girl is five. I think about trying to find him. I wonder how he is, who he is. He fell off the face of the planet after he left the band. Rumor said drugs were involved. His daughter has his eyes, rich warm cognac.

We used to laugh and sing Sinatra songs because I secretly loved them and he loved anything I loved. He sang to me on my eighteenth birthday with his electric guitar shredding behind beautiful lyrics. “Lovely, don’t you ever change.”

I reach out. I don’t condemn him for his decision, not ever. That’s what love is. Right? I’ve got to find him and make sure he’s okay. Because, well, even if it’s not transparent to everyone around me, I’ve never stopped loving him.

end 2/3/2018

Sascha Darlington