Home and the Kitsch That Builds It

I've had my new home here in Billings now for 20 days. Boxes are slowly opening, and their contents march to their homes on shelves and small tables. 55-degree days are punctuated by snowy ones (I hear that this weekend will be no different), and old pictures taken of and by Josh smile happily when I pluck their frames from their newsprint packing material.

I listen to Moxy Fruvous. I listen to the words. "Your mother made you cry when she told you about the womb, and how people die."

The photo of Josh at Larrabee hangs in my studio. The photo Joshua took of my wife and me stands poised on a shelf above my favorite books.

I am reminded every day now that my house is less of a home for the loss of his presence, and that the photographs are a cold, vivid loneliness in comparison to the companionship I have enjoyed all these years.

Acceptance is a bitter, bitter swill. I miss my friend.

The Snow

After Josh died a snowstorm descended.

The bitter, cold weather seemed to manifest how trapped and lonely I felt.

It hurt to go outside… it hurt to stay indoors.

A month later all the snow is gone except a miniature glacier that rapidly dissolves in the march to spring.

The shock of my best friend’s absence fades like that patch of ice.

But the cold remains