ada limon

He takes off his shoes and his baseball hat
He sits down next to you and says, enough of that
The people have gone home, the bar’s empty at last
And the sun comes up where the moon should be at

He smells like smoke and money and sin
And you don’t want to know where his mind has been
His arms are oak wood, but his heart’s made of tin
And you know for certain you’re not going to win

So you say, if he were a car, well then you would take the train
And if he were the sun, well then you would pray for rain
But you’re both heading to that same small town
That town in between the ups and the downs

Everybody’s dying and everybody’s sick
He lays next to you and says enough of this
There’s a dark in his eyes and a bitter in his kiss
But he’s got a drink that’s so hard to resist

But every boxer needs a reason to fight
And every shadow needs just a little bit of light
And you know you can make it
You just can’t make it right

So you say, if he were a car, well then you would take the train
And if he were the sun, well then you would pray for rain
But you’re both heading to that same small town
That town in between the ups and the downs
That town in between the ups and the downs


Pain, if it comes, cannot last for ever; surely one day you and I will meet again, and though my face be a mask of grief and my body worn out by solitude, you and you alone will recognize the soul which is more beautiful for having met yours, the soul of the artist who found his ideal in you, of the lover of beauty to whom you appeared as flawless and perfect.

Oscar Wilde

I learned from him how important it is in life not necessarily to be loved but to feel loved.

One morning, I woke up next to him in his 3rd floor apartment @ 359 Avenue of Americas above Bulucci's Indian Restaurant (which for some reason I always imagined in my head was a sushi place.) As he grabbed his chest and moaned with a painful sigh and tried to hide it by faking that irresistible smile, I began to cry.

"It's not that serious," he began to say as he jolted up to comfort me with inquisitiveness in his eyes. But being the befuddled mess that I am when tears actually find their way into the gutters of my eyes in the outside world, I couldn't begin to explain the deep sorrowful meaning as to why I was crying at this moment after another playful night with him. It's not that I wanted him to love me. It's not that I wanted this to be serious. It was the sadness rippling through me when I felt how worn he was, how deflated his passion for life was, the apathy that overwhelmed his essence. I wanted to say, "It seems like you can't feel love. Like you don't want it, or even feel like you need it."
But instead, I said nothing except, "It's nothing, I just wish you cared more about yourself."

Ever since I met him on December 11th, 2003, Denver had been there. Though not because he wanted to be. He owned The Four-Faced Liar and his friendly demeanor and lovable personality were the life-force of his business. When I had the opportunity to see him outside of the bar, he showed me sides of himself the patrons of his life wouldn't ever know. He showed me the play he'd been writing about a couple of alcoholics and their daily endeavors. He showed me his DJ work and the 4 CDs he had made beginning at the age of 16. And he showed me, the first time I stayed over with him, his favorite book, in hard cover, Into the Wild. He lent it to me and I read it in one train-ride home to Syracuse for Christmas. He told me it was tragic. But I didn't see how it was tragic at all. Is a man dying at the age of 26 a tragedy no matter how you look at it? What if you look deep inside the story and you see all the life that outweighs the death? Which matters more when contemplating someone’s death: the way it happened or what led up to it? It may be hard to believe that a death so brutal can have a flicker of glory within it. Chris McCandless’ death, from his parent’s view, may not be as glorious as the book or the film portray, but is it just me and my search for justifications on death that place this great tale of life in precedence, in significance, above the death itself?

I saw Denver's face four times during that film. I saw it first when Chris was sitting on the dirty mattress in the magic bus off the Stampede Trail, smiling at his life. I saw it second when Chris was floating down the river, naked, open to the world in which he'd chosen. And I saw it a third time in the pale struggling instances after he'd realized the berries he'd eaten were poisonous.

Denver pursued his dream entirely. Coming to America without a chance, he was adamant; he needed to be. Although nothing was laid out for him easily, nothing was standing in his way. When is it that we should sacrifice our pursuits and let go for a second in order to step back and see if our whole picture is being painted properly? He worked so hard, but he put his work above all else. It literally drove him into the ground. I can only hope that that girl in all the pictures at his memorial was a love which flourished in his heart. But that makes it all the sadder, that he had had this great thing going with this beautiful girl, and the floor of his apartment, the night at his 200 Orchard, his newly opened bar, and a cemetery in Belfast caused it all to shatter.

The fourth time I saw his face, was the birth-death dates at the end of the film, showing that Christopher McCandless lived to be 26 years old, about the same ripe age as Denver Cochrane. This is when the tears that I haven’t seen since March 24th broke through the flood gates; six months after his death, a movie was shown in dedication of Denver.

Now, after half a year with him living up there above us all, I am stilled by my memories and silenced by my yearnings. Only hoping that he is playful in the sky with all that he was missing down here. There must be so much we are missing down here, we just don't know it yet. I am missing him down here.