An ode to DFA

Sometimes the memories just come, sometimes I conjure you up in my mind's eye because that is the only place I see you anymore. One day recently a random link from not martha led me to here. I have no idea when you gave me my origami pin, I am guessing it's close to twenty years now, lovely paper folded into a kimono, laquered, beautiful colours. Mostly it sits in a jewelry box but because you gave it to me, I do not think I will ever part with it. Nearby in another box rests with the silver necklace from Italy, the Venetian glass pendents also from Italy. You really loved Italy.

Today it is six years since we spoke and I have no idea why we do not any more. I no longer call every week as I did for years, during other periods of silence though none of them were as long as this one. I even called every week during that time when you had no answering machine or voicemail because I hoped, I prayed, I feared that you would answer. My finger still itches to call you more often than I do but since there has never been a live voice at the other end, I save the dialing for days when I can stand to your recorded voice, when leaving a message that will never be returned will hurt just a bit less.

Except for your silences my memories are filled with love and laughter. I still tell our stories, I hold you as a savior of my childhood on many levels. You helped me discover pieces of self I did not even know where missing. Going to your apartment for weekends during my adolescence was my oasis of fun, the place where I felt wholly loved, my safe place. I cannot believe there is nothing but silence now.

There are times when it hurts so much to have been disappeared by you, there is never a time I cease to miss you. I imagine conversations that could happen, the stories you don't yet know because you've been gone. Now, as the years slip by I wonder how I would ever tell you everything that I've been storing away for you. There are days when I am angry, not sad. Mad, so mad I could yell at you for hours, screaming at you for not being there, not responding, causing me worry, deserting me. It confuses me how you could do this, desert me, everyone really. I have stopped calling your friends because their story is the same as mine - you left us all. But you were there when I was born, I had no life where you were not alive. With the silence I wonder if this is really what it will be like if you had died. Only it is not because I still call you hoping, while I drip with anticipatory sweat, that you might pick up the phone, or that later that day, or week you will return the call.

Six years have passed and every time I dial the phone my heart beats faster and I hold my breath.