fade to gray (frank ocean)

lost.

[ blaze to the side ]

       "damn, what time is it?" i yawned, stretching out against the thousand-thread count sheets. i wasn't shocked that she had come back to bed with me last night, after she got tired of being mad at my level of indifference. blaze (i finally remembered her name.) had fallen asleep next to me, and had reached out for me in her sleep, but i pushed her off of me sometime, and i faced the opposite direction so that i wouldn't have to look at her. 

some man i am, right?

       i had wrongly assumed she was asleep, and she answered softly, "it's around 10. and in case you also forgot what day today is, it's december sixth." i pulled in a sharp breath. six rounds to make a child. i found out i had a child on the sixth, and found out i lost her on the sixth. grandmere used to tell me 3 sixes back to back were the devil's number.

      "thank you." i rose out of bed, then went to go get dressed for another day full of nothingness. life without anise seemed to pass by so mundanely that i didn't really notice or care about new days. everything blended into a mix of waking up, feeding myself without the desire to eat, running blaze around and trying to keep her happy, running her to work then heading to the studio. that was the only thing that added color to my life anymore, singing for my lost lives. this new project is a mix of everything - life in louisiana, life before her in california, life with her in cali and louisiana, and life without her back in cali. how that had become life with blaze, i don't know.

       i got out of the shower to find 1 missed call and a text message from one of my closest friends, cam. we drifted apart over time, with him still being in the game and me being out and doing my own thing, but hearing from him every now and then was to be expected. i hoped he wasn't in no type of trouble, so i skipped reading his text and called him back. "cam?"

"hey, lonny, bruh." he sounded breezy, like he was coming down from a high. "get my text?"

"i got it, i just ain't read it."

he laughed like a mix of wiz khalifa and mickey mouse. "nigga, why the fuck not?"

"cause," i managed to choke out, laughing at his laugh. this nigga is a damn fool! 

       "yeah, okay. but what i had tried to tell yo black ass was, i'm having a party tonight downtown, at that club down the street from where blaze works." cam knew about blaze, and he had his eyes down at the club making sure nobody messed with her (outside of her ususal stripping shit). "sides, i know what day it is and i know you do, so you could use something to take your mind off of it."  he also knew about my child, and he knew about what i'd gone through with anise. he even knew about when i got her involved in the dope game.

       having a former rich girl you loved was toxic to a nigga who was used to living modestly's health, and ego. naturally, you wanted to give her the world, and even more, the world she was accustomed to. you wanted to give her all that her father had comfortably provided for her, and one-up him because your love wasn't nessecarily a 'required' love.

       she'd grown up knowing what versace was before she could even write her own name. plainly spoken, mr. henderson had serious bank. i felt like in her eyes, to compare to him at all, i had to make something close to what he made. due to my history and living under a fake alias in los angeles, only thing i could really do was get into the dope game. i was totally consumed with self-loathing for so long; how could i do the same shit that caused my mom to deteriorate to make a living?

       it was in the name of the lovely miss anise henderson that i coaxed myself into semi-believing that i was the only exception, even though the angel on my left shoulder let me know that i was a hypocrite. those men who stood on the corners with pockets laden with enough dope to land them in jail for life did what they did for love, too. love for their younger siblings, love for their young, innocent children, or just because they loved to eat and weren't going back to starvation.