Yesterday, as I pulled out of the local Dunkin Donuts, after I felt so sad, and bloated from bingeing, I thought back to that whole decade and it chilled me like the memory of an excised spirit. In those days, I sliced, diced, burned, struggled, kicked, cried and then slowly crawled away from the mess of my life. Closed the door on Barry and his peers, on the group home, on that dusty proof that gnawed at my skin.

I tell myself now there’s no way I’ll ever return to that frame of mind, to that state. I’m a different person, no longer sick, more confident and steady. But with a binge of donuts and classic song played at just the precise moment, I traveled there for maybe ninety seconds, maybe five minutes and just…felt. I felt it, you know? I smelled the wafting pot in the audience at the concert, the cramped seating, the gooey floor and I was back. Uncomfortable, haunted, and paranoid. Shaking even.  Moments of rich memories like that are necessary and great for real writing, my teachers have always told me. Wonderful for essential and honest prose, but it’s so melancholy for the heart. Melancholy for the tear ducts and throughout the body.

Just melancholy stuff.