My Name Is Jimmy and You Better Not Wear It Out

When I look back at last summer, the summer spent in the City, I always remember the times I had with...well, you know. My days of drugs and barely conscious sex are mostly over (I do indulge in Mary Jane's sweet company once in a while). It's 1991, I'm in college, and I'm working on getting my degree in psychology.

I'm working three different jobs. School fees and living expenses suck.

I've met this girl, Kristin, and I'm pretty sure we have something.

Didn't expect that, did ya?

I've been trying to forget her name and all the bad memories that go with it. How I fell apart, lost the admiration of everyone, totally ignored how she had felt about me and what she was trying to tell me.

Basically I was forgetting hitting rock bottom, but I guess that I wouldn't forget the moral of the god damn story.

Love = not always badDrugs = mostly bad (Never mind)
Listening to Tunny for your whole damn life = definitely fucking bad

I had become one of the people that I hated. I was the American Idiot. I had fallen in love, I'll admit it, and she probably wouldn't even think of me as more than a casual fuck (most likely untrue, who am I trying to kid?) who she had a baby with. And that's what I had been to most people in my life.

A very high, very god damn good, casual-as-hell fuck.

When I was cleaning out the apartmentGlor Whatsername and I shared for those amazing weeks, I hadn't realized how many pictures I had of me and her; naked or otherwise. I couldn't even remember taking them, but when I was withGlo her I was on a natural high that only she could trigger.

I threw all of them in a pile while I finished packing all of the things that were mine. When I was done, the only things that were left was the Lazy-Boy and the ratty old mattress the two of us used to share. The one that had somehow been where I had fallen in love and contemplated my suicide.

Well...his suicide.

After putting my stuff in the buss and telling the driver to wait for five more fucking minutes and I would be right with him, I went back into the apartment where the metal trashcan sat, looking somewhat forlorn. It was where it had always been, sitting by the window, watching my summer unfold.

I glanced over the rim, expecting it to be empty, and found it full of things that were ready to burn. I must've absentmindedly filled it while I was picking up all my shit. I placed the Polaroids carefully on top of everything in the can, then pulled the bottle of lighter fluid out of my jacket pocket.

I emptied the entire bottle into the can, making sure everything was somewhat soaked, then lit it and watched it burn.

All the images could now blur in my mind, obscuring details about the past few months that I wouldn't want to remember.

ObscuringGl Whatsername into a pleasant memory.

I pulled the last cigarette from its box and lit it on my burning memories. This would be my last cigarette with her. The last smoke that I would use to think about her. She was gone, off to Wherever --New York or otherwise-- to marryNate Whatshisface. As I smoked and watched the flames, I searched for a reason to stay in this shithole of a city.

Memories? No.

Drugs? I could get those at home.

All the people to save from a life of pain and heartbreak?

That's when I realized that I truly had no desire to save anyone anymore. Sex and drugs didn't replace real feelings. Orgasms and numbness had nothing on love and hate and pain and depression and the rest of the spectrum of human emotion.

Then I felt a hole in my chest where a piece of my being used to be.

The Saint was really gone.

And I was okay with that.

January 1
Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I can remember the face, but I can't recall the name
Now I wonder howGloria Whatsername has been
Seems that she disappeared without a trace
Did she marry old what's his face
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face. But I can't recall the name
Now I wonder howGloria Whatsername has been
Remember, whatever
It seems like forever ago
Remember, whatever
The regrets are useless, in my mindGloria She's in my head
I must confess. The regrets are uselessGloria She's in my head
From so long ago and in the darkest night
If my memory serves me right
I'll never turn back time

......................................Forgetting you, but not the time