I watched myself die today.

Lying on a bed of textbooks and 
report cards, breathing the
oiled aromas of late-night ramen snacks.
My college applications were stitched
into the surface of my
otherwise porcelain skin and
my cello lay next to me as my lover.

I threw a daffodil to her, which I told people was my favorite flower,
watching as my demons crept out of my breast and solemnly lit her up.

The flames cackled,
crackled higher, roaring 
raucously, a cacophony 
of symphonies which burnt away
old flesh and left me pure as --

but I wasn't pure. The body that
pulled itself away from the inferno recognized sin.

She had dabbled in the
greed of the selfish,
learned the gluttony of the starving,
bathed in the lust of adolescence;
fell enraptured with the courtings of pride
and grown heady to the poison of envy he carried.

As I awoke, I could still taste his essence on my lips,
but I came back like a phoenix,
reborn with the power of my past mistakes,
rejuvenated with wisemen's optimism.
I could bare my heart up high and
take the judgment of millions,
speak so soft so that everyone could hear me
and understand that

I am my most beautiful friend and awful enemy.

Everyday, I relive my first cautious steps,
my stage performances, auditions,
first kisses and embraces, reunions,
heres and theres and failures and successes;
I hold my mother's hand with
123456789101112131415161718 years behind me
and I look into my father's eyes with the confidence
that I'll be able to bear him on my shoulders and wear his
demons as my own.

I had kissed my grandfather on the cheek and promised him
that I would not let him down and that I would be the forest fire
to consume the earth's surface and set it free
as I did to myself. The rains of all the mourning mothers
would fall upon the earth

and daffodils would bloom 
forever and forever and forever.

I write to await the future as it comes,
and preserve my memory in past's words.
I write so that all can realize that goodbye
is another way of saying hello.