Kat; aka  the girl with the sweet stick left this morning for africa, the south of it to be exact...leaving me her Marylin Monroe dress, black platfroms and... "on my desk, I've left a bag of stuff for you, nice drawing paper and a porcupine quill.." she tells me all wide eyed chewing on a piece of wood, candy wood, candy wood?
"it's the stuff they get candy from, don't you know?"  I don't know any of this stuff she knows..like what tree leaves are edible, what flowers taste sweet...what noises these weird animals that only live in Africa make...that there are seven kingdoms of plants, and south africa has all of them. That there's a special breed of cats who were bred specifically to have more pads and catch more mice...they're called Hemingway cats.."oh my god!! your cat is a Hemingway cat!"
things stick out in my thoughts as do fresh memories ...like blue chips.."these are Quebec potatoes! one day i'll give you blue potatoes, blue carrots and blue..and blue..." oh fuck my memory...but I remember she said that as she blew smoke rings "I smoked for many years just to master making rings" Absolum, my blue caterpillar...picked out tomatoes and basil and chive from her own little balcony garden while she swore at squirrels and diapered her cherry tomatoes in tiny plastic bags to fool them..while she chewed on that tiny branch..candy stick..and said "a turtle walking"  imitating it with her hands..."you know? it's that awkward pause in the conversation at a dinner party where everybody goes ..huuhh, it's like a turtle walking" we were trashing someone then, i recall...we were... I love her but we're no angels...and i'm jotting these details down to remember, since I believe in my greed to hold on to memories , to smells, to tastes, that out of everyone i've ever known, no one in that crowd of rush hour metro ride at the end of a boring work day, would pull out a stack of tiny old photographs and a magnifying glass with such passion and say "i can't believe these people are dead now" and go through them as if she were a Medium trying to revive their souls..and paint them later..no one collects old photographs, chews on tree branches, blows smoke rings, calls traffic lights robots, gives you blue chips and a Marylin Monroe dress and a porcupine quill and returns to Africa..just like that
it's....

it's just that I believe some people should be written down, should be learned and then recited…