I wish I could talk to you, Martha. 

I wish I hadn't been so dismissive and hurt the last few months of your life. I didn't know you were going through that much pain; the pain so striking you wanted to end it. 

I hope you understand that I too was in pain. Pained from the loss of a dear friend I counted on. Someone who had witnessed my life up into adulthood. Someone I wanted to help. Someone I needed to hear on a regular basis. And then you disappeared...into drugs, into chaos, into the deepest and darkest sadness. 

I was angry and annoyed when you called, with your voice so lost. You needed answers on how to live. How to move around in this world. You were 34, so was I. I knew what had worked for me...but who knew if that would work for you. It never seemed like my suggestions were ever do-able for you. And, what did I really know about answering such questions. I may have looked like a steel warrior, but I am and was just as scared...most of the time. The difference is, perhaps, is I have a stubborn reserve of not failing, of surviving...not always because I want to but it's been ingrained in me to live. Like the fish that flops on the ground, begging for air, and hoping it will get knocked back into the ocean. But I did try. Martha, I hope you know I tried. Ultimately, it seems I couldn't bring the horse to drink the water, even if I poured it all over you, under you, in your mouth. 

You've probably heard, being my one of guardian angels now- my grandfather died almost 3 weeks ago. Before that, Marcus- my AD- died. Prior then that, my dear friend Rudy...and you knew about Eddie. Every time someone I love passes away, I grieve weirdly. I feel guilty for living. Like I could have saved Eddie, Rudy or you. It's an ego trip because none of it has to do with me. We often put ourselves into the center of it, like it matters. Most of the time, it does not. 

I remember one of the last times I saw you- we were in Miami. No matter how many times I saw you, I was always surprised at how tall you were. We played with that massive iron dumb bell. You swung it fiercely, with agility, through your legs and laughed. Your limbs were athletic and yet skinny at the same time. Me being the stocky one didn't relish the idea of working out with it, but you kept on swinging like you could take it. However, you often seemed like a tree, but a tree that was always about to fall down. Like a wispy willow tree, so precarious and about to sway away. I haven't seen a similar willow tree since. 

Tonight, I started writing to the internet void...because...to be honest, I'm sad and depleted. Lonely hearted still. At 40, I still feel like a misfit. I often think everyone on Earth is being punished. It's at odds with my other belief that anyone can make a heaven on Earth, if they simply want it bad enough. Earth is clearly beautiful. Delicate. Precious. Diverse. Maybe I'm just disgusted being a human. We're an awful species. Every time I take out the garbage, I'm reminded of my filth...and yet I'm fairly clean and conscious.

But that's not why I miss you terribly and how I ache to speak to you now...and often. I do not have the will to end my life, but I contemplate it...and where you might be. I'd rush to you in the mist; screaming out your name. Martha! Help me. I've missed you. I needed you.

Often, I think you had it right. To take your own life seems dementedly ballsy, but maybe you knew better. At my grandfather's sermon, the idiot pastor said that my grandpa was in a better place because he believed in Jesus. The ones who die first are spared and are closer to God now. He also tried to recruit everyone to the church; threatening that all of us weren't going to Heaven if we didn't take Jesus Christ into our hearts this very minute; reminding us, luckily, that my grandfather did that and he will be welcomed to the "kingdom." I hate that pious, self righteous, hypocritical shit. I know you would have agreed with me that he was tacky, inappropriate and opportunistic to do that after my eulogy. 

I write on this anonymous platform because maybe there is another person who is lonely in LA...or somewhere else...and they need to read thoughts of loss and emptiness...to remind themselves they are simply human...and it is going to be okay. It is. Going to be okay. 

Tomorrow is a new day. I love you.