You.....

   You had three names.  Four actually.  You hated the clutter of three last names but you held onto to your given first name with the strictest of standards.  You were always Catherine.  Not Cat, not Cathy, you were always Catherine.  You were Catherine Emily when you made me crazy and as much as I loved you, you drove me to the depths of distraction on many many occasions.  You were with me during the embryo stages of adulthood.  You were there for the bars and the booze and the drugs and the self doubt.  You and I were like barflies.  With you, everything made sense.

  And then there was quiet and we both grew up and the quiet made me realize how much I truly loved you.  In the quiet, there was a one bedroom in a god awful part of town.  Naturally, you took the bed.  I remember you now, forever puzzled when I said that I loved you.  You never believed me but I meant every single one of those "I love yous'."  I meant those words when we were poor and barely existing.  I meant those words when I trekked out into the cold to get you coffee.  You loved coffee.  It was your love of coffee that I used to get you to take the picture I carry with me in my head and my heart.  You were so beautiful but you never realized it.  You had the audacity to say you were fat as you stood in front of the camera.  I told you over and over that you were beautiful but you kept saying you weren't.  Like always, you asked me why I was with you.  Years later, I know the answer.  You taught me to breathe, you taught me the wonders of possibility. You taught me that nothing was ever trivial.  You were the romantic among us and you were always the brave one.  Oh that feeling of possibility, I felt it with every smile and every curiosity that you awakened in me.  Oh that feeling of possibility, how it melted it away the static.  So this was for you Catherine.  I wish I was the writer everyone thinks I am.  Because if I was, I'd be able to truly capture your essence with my words.  You're rolling your eyes, I can see it now.  I hear your voice as you whisper one of your philosophies in my ear, I feel you with me as I hold you.

  You told me to go on but no one is you.  You can stop rolling your eyes, I know what I promised. But you have to understand; the world seems bigger without you.  A lot bigger without you.  You have to understand, I still feel you.  You're not out of my head or my heart, you're still there and you always will be.  You are there with every snowfall and every rumble of the train as I make my way past the place where we fell in love.  You are there when I think of those inane pictures you used to take.  You liked walls, you know you did.  I can see that old paint store, the height of your "watercolor" period.  You wanted to be an artist but I didn't have the heart to tell you that you couldn't paint for shit.  I'm sorry for being maudlin and I'm sorry for that little fib I told you about my skating ability.  You were a skater, it was your thing and I couldn't bare to disappoint you.  And like always, you turned my moment of sheer stupidity into something I would always carry with me.  My brain couldn't help my legs pull off the charade and I fell.  I fell and then you fell and just when I felt like crawling inside of myself, you showed me the value of letting go.