Keep me, please.
Keep me with you, old memories, hanging like a light bulb in the attic of my heart. Keep me whole and present in the warmth of your bosom. Let me hold your memory like old lovers do, or like those who refuse to let go of one another.
Let me think this way and let me believe that the word never can never exist.
Let me refuse the idea that some of my best yesterdays will never be seen again.
So, again, I make my request.
Keep me, please.
Keep me in your thoughts and in your heart.
Let me lay back and think about the times when I felt alive, as in most alive, or impenetrable and indestructible. Let me feel that old familiar feeling when I was young enough to not care about the future or the repercussions of the consequences of my actions. Let me remember the thrill of being wild and crazy. Let me remember the way I was when I would dare the world and, if at all possible, let me be how I was when I had the balls and dare anyone to have something to say about it.
I think about the time I read the quote that said “I have wanted to run away as an adult more than I ever did as a child.”
I can understand that, of course I can.
Then again, I have been an adult much longer than when I was a child.
But somehow, I think I am still too childlike.
I’m still just a kid, in some sorts.
Maybe not in all of them. Or maybe I forgot my roots.
Maybe cynicism and pessimism had too much to say.
I have to remember that realism and skepticism is okay, taken in moderation, of course.
Either way –
I am still too dreamy. Maybe.
Or maybe this version of me is me at my best, all true, no flaws and flawlessly hopeful that the term never is something that should never exist.
I admit that my fork tends to run away with the spoon, or that I move too fast or get too far ahead of myself. But maybe that’s me. Maybe that’s fine, when I am with the right person.
Maybe I am tired of the lies or living double lives or maybe I have decided that I know what I want and that substitutions and settlements will no longer be accepted.
Never say never.
Right?
Keep me, please.
Put me in that place where you store your treasures and hold them dearly.
Hold me like you would when you come across an old thing from your childhood.
You understand, right?
You find that valuable thing that you saved and you kept for moments like this, to accidentally come across and relive the moments, which fill you with warmth and makes you smile.
I have read stories about people who took their money and left the country to go live in some kind of paradise. I think about their life and how it must be.
But this is only fantasy.
I can see a place in Harlem’s garden in Central Park and be fine.
I swear.
I don’t need much anymore.
Then again, I am not who I was anymore, and you are not who you were to me,
at least not anymore.
Nothing is the same, nor can anything be the same again.
At the same time, I know they tell me never to say never.
So, I won’t.
I will only ask that you keep me, please.
Keep me in a good place in your heart.
There will never be a need to jump up and down like there was.
But that’s something else to keep in your storage.
Or me, as I am—
I am not looking to run or run away.
Not anymore.
I don’t have to leave or go anywhere.
I am where I am and as for where I’m going to be, —well?
Who knows?
I never thought I would be here.
But I am.
I never thought that I would make it this far.
But I have.
I never thought that I would wake up the way I do now, naked and by myself.
Shaken . . . not stirred.
I am nearing another corner. And I am fine to realize that certain times call for the word never to be true. And that’s okay too.
It has to be
(for now).
The morning is quiet.
The sky is gray.
Like always, I woke up at my early hour, just to speak with you here.
By the way, one thing I can say will never happen is that I will never give up what I do with you here.
This has always been my way of keeping you and holding you close.
Keep me, please.
That’s all I ask.
The Written Addiction 