I am Sam

This is for someone who loved me. I suspect a tiny bit more than I loved him. But isn’t that how love works? An unbalanced bitch. Not a balanced ledger book.

When I first met Sam, I was a wild dog. Mostly howling at the moon outside bars in the dead of nights. Nursing bruises that no one could see.

Sam could.

When I first met Sam, I was fairly lost. Finding meaning in sands and moments in water. I didn’t know then that sand and water can make beautiful beaches but neither was permanent.

Sam did.

When I first met Sam, I thought here was a man who wore his scars like he understood them. Never made peace with them. But understood them.

I still do.

When I first met Sam, I realised just how healing friendship can be. How deeply  and permanently healing.

I still do.

Sam was a lyrical pool of generosity by the time we all found ourselves. His open doors were merely metaphorical. The real truth was his open heart. The heart that was so beautifully rare that some motherfucker up in the sky wanted it all for himself.

So Sam left (me). For some faraway place. With his scars and his smiles. His music and his madness.

So Sam left (me). Suddenly. Like when you step out of a room for a moment and when you come back, you find the person in it gone. Only the gently swinging door, reminding you he was there in the first place, greets your surprise. But that was how Sam would have preferred to leave in any case. Goodbyes are for pussies.

And Sam left (me). But his music stayed. For all of us. Because you can take a man away. But you cannot ever remove the stains of music he left on you.

But Sam hasn’t left me. The body is mere carbon. An unpredictable matchstick. It can go any time. But the music. That stays. Forever. Inside.

I am not ever going to mourn my best friend. Ever.

I am going to be him.

I am him.

I am Sam.

This music is in memory of him. I hope he is proud.