Sentiment

      I knew this girl once, Ceriz.  She was gorgeous.  I remember hating her at first.  She was from San Diego and so much bigger than our small town.  She had a take no shit attitude that I mistook for aggression.  She lived down the street, we shared the same friends, I saw her everyday at school.  She highlighted her hair with blonde and blue and listened to all the right music.  I just knew everything about her must have been an act and it drove me crazy that so many people fell for it.  I loathed every word that came from her vile little mouth. 
Ceriz had a sister.  Sasha was just as cool but completely opposite.  She came to town a blazing lesbian with no shame or apologies.  Sasha I admired and Ceriz was always around.  Through various misadventures I finally understood the true nature of Ceriz.  She was unlike any girl I had ever known before.  The boys liked her and painted her a slut.  Truth was Ceriz was pickier than even the most virtuous girls around.


        I knew this girl once, Ceriz.  I admired her endless confidence and unwavering bravery.  The boys liked her and the girls assumed she was easy because she possessed an air they would have to wait years to discover.  She was cool without trying or caring.  She only knew her life was short and every moment was a chance to create something deeper than ourselves.  I could never understand why she chose to hang out with me.  I was quiet and content to be alone passing through life without making a dent.  People like Ceriz did not hang out with girls like me, but there she was knocking on my door on a cold rainy  fall day back in my sophomore year of highschool.  She was only a freshman, not that it mattered to me.  Longing for experience, I ventured out the front door and wandered the streets of Maplewood, a neighborhood that went absolutely nowhere. 
        Ceriz was a magnet for attention, a thing I definitely never asked for.  We weren’t exactly best friends.  She had charlotte and I had whoever I liked to be around.  Looking back, I realize we had the kind of bond that could have grown if only we had the time.  We came from a bitter apathetic generation that was hell bent on destruction, but somehow we managed to dream of something happier.  She was braver than I was.  In her world their were no consequences.  No one told her she could do better and be all the wonderful things she was supposed to be.  She would act out and the world would move itself to find a way to make her happy.  Her charm was her power and her curse.
        One day we ran away with Crysten.  We took my car and 250 dollars and made it all the way to San diego.  Ceriz made it happen.  It was because of her I saw the ocean and listened to the crazy ramblings of a homeless man on the beach.  I can still see him, spouting nonsense words through a long grungy beard that sounded like absolute poetry to me.  We strolled the beach and made fucked up friends.  I distinctly remember thinking I had never seen so many stoplights.  In my head I could count every lighted intersection bavk home, it was the only way I managed to gain a perspective of the size of this massive city I found myself in.  It was in California ceriz and I truly bonded.  Our personalities complimented eachother and led us on much needed adventure.  I know now our actions were incredibly dangerous, but back then I wasn’t jaded.  I had yet to learn how truly cruel the world can be to a reckless young girl.  That short time in califorinia meant so much to me.  When you are a little kid you close your eyes and turn your world into something far better than the reality you know.  That’s what she did for me.  She showed me I could be anywhere I wanted to be.
        Only ceriz kept her eyes shut.  For her that trip was coming home.  We stayed barely a week when their parents came and drug us back.  For them it was only a game, a way to push their parents button.  They said they ran away for me, and I let them think I believed it.  Crysten and I drifted apart then.  I probably would have hid away again but ceriz came along to beg me to relive every moment.  Eventually her parents were convinced that moving back to San Diego would cure ceriz of all those things that made her enjoy the slow act of killing herself.  We were inseperable, with charlotte, before she left.  She wanted us to come and I wanted to want to go.  But I was not as brave as her and knew eventually she would leave me all alone because girls like her never truly understand girls like me.  I remember thinking how absurd the whole idea was to me.  We ran away to party as hard and fast as possible.  Her parents were taking her right back there.  My parents only had fear in their eyes when they looked at me. 
        She was leaving.  To me she was chasing unmapped constellations off the edge of the earth, seeking tidal sunsets that couldn’t exist.  The last night as she cried in our arms begging us to come with her, I couldn’t muster a tear.  I loved her and my heart was breaking, but I just couldn’t cry.  She looked at me with tears streaming down her face and I saw her break just a little bit.  I’ll never forget the look on her face.  “You’re not even crying.”  I had disappointed her.  I never really believed she cared.  I wanted to speak up and tell her how I would miss her and longed to come with her, but I felt so ashamed I had underestimated the true longing in her heart for honest friendship.  She wasn’t using me to fall down a rocky slope, she caught me falling first and appreciated the company.  All those  years I assumed I hated so much because the world hated me.  that night I broke the heart of the only girl who had ever made me feel pretty just for being me, because I hated her for not being more like me.

      So they left, Sasha and ceriz and I tumbled down that hill even faster.  Ceriz had been inspiration.  I studied her with fascination.  I knew I could ever be like her, but that was not a goal.  I saw her honestly, flaws and all because that is what she wanted you to see.  She scared me, though.  She decided her life wasn’t for this world so long ago, but to her it wasn’t sorrow.  The edge called her, filled her with excitement, propelled her through a life she declared all for her own.  She would call me from time to time, still begging me to come away.  I remember the way my heart ached and how her voice sounded so far away.  She was already slipping away towards the fascinating darkness.  I didn’t know I mattered.  I didn’t know she was looking for something to keep her rooted.  She just sounded so far away. 

        Two days ago I found out Ceriz is two years dead.  Again I am sad that she is leaving but can’t seem to muster the tears.  Maybe I prepared myself the minute she knocked on my door.  Girls like her don’t stick around for girls like me.  it is the absolute worst feeling in the world to know that I never really tried.  i heard the pain in her voice, saw the desperation in her actions and assumed it was an act.  The irony is absurd.  I wallowed in my pain and selfishly assumed hers couldn’t be deeper.  To me she had so much.  I envied her.  She gave me so much inspiration and courage and I gave noting in return.  I thought of her often all throughout the years.  I predicted her inevitable demise, but I did NOTHING.  my life is a constant battle within myself.  I sabotage myself at every opportunity.  My blessed daughter gave me strength to somehow reach for something deeper.  I cannot fix myself and cannot fix the world, but I will never again stand idly by and watch one of God’s beautiful daughters cry alone on an empty street in the middle of the night.  i am weak all alone.  The love of a soul worth loving gives me a strength I hope can become something  more powerful than all the doubt that lives inside me. 
I write to whomever may read this, I write to you, Ceriz.  I’m still not crying, but I don’t think I am supposed to be.  You will always live because you have always inspired me.  I believe your soul is doing far greater things now that it is no longer tethered to this complicated earth.  The complexity of being still weighs on me, but I enjoy the burden.  I am still afraid to live, but that leaves me nothing but death.  I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend and pray I become someone who inspires others the way you inspired me. 

Good Night, Ceriz.  I hope you enjoyed it.

Love Always,
Me