Old Muses and Old Bruises

(This was written long, long ago. But haunts me now, just the same...)

I've been taking on the habits of an insomniac lately. I blame stress. And the heat. How can a person sleep when they stick to the bed? How can a person sleep with the devil in the next room? But now we're just being melodramatic. Don't sink to her level.

I met a boy on a mountain once. He was younger than me. He taught me more in one day than anyone else I can think of. And I remember him saying, "It's strange, you've read all the books I have read, and you already know my favorite lines." Like the one about flying. Just throw yourself at the ground and miss. We tried it. Damn our aim.

He was the only complete person I've ever known. He didn't want anything in the world. And I could only find him on that mountain. As soon as we got to the bottom he disappeared. I remember dropping him off in the middle of the street in the middle of the city, and he just put on his back pack and faded into the half-light. The next weekend I found him on the mountain again.

I don't know where he lived. I don't know where he is now. I don't know his last name. So many questions I never asked him. Like where did he go that dark night? Was he ever a child? Why did it make him happy to humor me?

You know what he asked me? He asked me how old I was. Then he asked me how old he was. "And how old am I?" he asked, like he was speaking to a child. I did the math. "Younger than my little brother." He was testing me. He wanted to see if it would freak me out.

It did.

I never kissed him. It wasn't just the age thing, it was how totally separate from reality he was. I didn't want to drag him down to earth and make him part of my everyday life. He said things to me that to this day ring in my head as some of the truest words ever spoken. They come to me in stressful times. Which must be why I'm thinking of him tonight. I found him during a time of sadness and silence. And maybe I took all my hope and projected it onto him, because I felt that I was no longer a vessel of hope. Someone else had to carry it. I don't know what the truth is, because all I have are the memories, and the memories are like the light points of a dream, mostly feeling and glimpses of places too beautiful for conscious thought. He's the representation of... oh i don't know, something deep.

He's a regular human being, and he's out there somewhere. But in my mind, he'll always be on that mountain.