You Could Be Mine

Just so you know, I won’t be starting my letter with ‘Dear Whatever’ because I can’t and won’t spell your name. I can’t bare to look at it, write it, think of it… any of that. So here we go.

I am not asking if you’re well and how your life is; I don’t care, to put it nicely. The only reason I’m writing all this shit is because it seems like a good idea to get it all out of me. Yeah, and maybe because I’m high as a kite.

Do you remember how we met? I do.
You were in this band and the only thing that stuck out was your voice. It sounded like nothing I had ever heard of, like someone being tortured… but all that in tune. Somehow, we were always destined to be together but never met. I knew your best friend Izzy, I had heard about you looking for a guitarist but at the time, I was auditioning for Poison, thank god that didn’t work out.

Have you ever felt a spark so strong that could send you into another universe? Yeah, I’m asking you a question you motherfucker.

When I first saw you up-close, in the dingy apartment you and Izzy shared, you barely spoke, you were too busy talking on the phone, ignoring me completely. I couldn’t help not stare at you, you had this aura that captured me, like a snake captured its prey.

The next time we met, I captured you. With my guitar playing. Even though you’d never admit it, you were mind-blown. You were so ecstatic about me that Izzy stormed off. I never quite understood your brotherhood with Izzy, you were always a selfish bastard and he was your lapdog, ready for your service.
Things got started rather quickly with the band.

You had no place to stay, so you crashed at my house for a few nights. Let’s just say that I didn’t sleep during those nights, I was too busy watching you sleep. Don’t dare to say how creepy that is, trust me, I know… but I had never felt that way before for anybody.

You had the perfect milk-white skin, mixed with a little pink, because you liked hanging out on the streets all day long. We all did.
Contrary to your normal character, when you slept, your body just let go and collapsed onto whatever surface you were sleeping on, call it floor, call it bed… whatever. Your eyes flicker sometimes, its actually really beautiful to watch.

Its amazing to see you quiet, I’m so used to hear you scream, shout and have fits. When you’re out cold you are the most glorious creature that has ever been sprawled on my bed. Its crazy, its fucking mental that I can’t go and lie down beside you and touch your arm thrown over my pillow, taste it with my lips.
Don’t get me talking about the hair. If I could describe it in color, it would be carrots with milk in a blender. I know it’s a stupid description but that’s my fucking choice, okay? Anyway, I want that mop of hair in my fingers, I want to pull on it, to hold it and possibly cut a strand so I could have something of yours except all your verbal abuses.

But as you remember, we had an incident at home. I won’t go into details because we both know you’re not supposed to piss my grandma off. And you overreacted when I told you to apologize. Seriously, what sane person would jump out of a fucking car to avoid apologizing?

You were never the sane type of man.

But I guess that made me one as well, since I was always involved in the riots you caused. Those were good times indeed. Like when we tied up Faster Pussycat’s drummer because he had slept in Duff’s bed.
Your sly mind made us all agree that the best punishment would be to tie him up with tape, along with the mattress and put him in the elevator. All you could hear from that poor fucker were his muffled cries…

Things got better. We got an album that was skyrocketing above all the other albums, we had tours and despite you being late sometimes… well, lots of times, those were good times. The real excitement came when Use Your Illusion was up and running.

That tour was when it all started.

We had all played with drugs before but by now, they were my trusty companions. Duff was a walking vodka advertisement and I was about the same. You just did a ton of pot so everything was fine. Izzy and Steven were out of the picture but we were so fucked up that it made no difference.

The Use Your Illusion tour contained many first’s for me.

It was the first time you started wearing the shorts that made my temperature rise… Almost illegally short, too tight and almost always red, we were all better off if you hadn’t been wearing anything. I mean, fuck, they were so tight. After watching for a while and boiling in my pants, I just started wearing an old pair of shorts, it was the only thing that could save me.

It was also the first time I eavesdropped on a conversation you were having with yourself. You were rambling on about something until I caught my name rolling off your tongue. You were furious about a tiny mistake I had done onstage, all I could hear behind the shut door was you throwing stuff around.
I never confronted you about that because I would end up being thrown around myself, even though I was bulkier than you. You’ve always been a feisty motherfucker.

Its when I started to go downhill, my life was turning into a rock n’ roll rollercoaster, like the one I had always dreamed of when I was younger, reading through rock magazines and admiring my idols. Do you know that the word ‘idol’ has a negative meaning? The idol is an item of worship but not something to look up to. Worship has its negative effects, which in my case was a world of excess, drugs, booze and you in a way…

I can’t tell if you’ve ever felt the way I have. It fucking kills me not being with you even though its for the best. Its 1996 Axl… yet another dark November and as I’m writing this, I’m crying.

I’m not a sissy but I am crying for what I never had. I know I will never have you again, I barely had the chance back then to have you. I never found out if that night a few years ago was real or not.

Everybody’s spirits were high, it was probably after some gig, don’t take my word on it, my memory tends to be hazy sometimes. It was all innocent fooling around until I sort of fell on you, collapsing on the couch.
Your warm body was so inviting, you were fucking shirtless so I will just say that you were asking for it. You used to be such a little whore back then. A simple peck on the cheek led to me running my hands all over your naked torso, feeling the tight muscles you have under my fingers.

Everything on you is always so sharp, so severe, as if I’m gonna end up hurt any second now. Well, I did so I was right after all.

We fell asleep like that, together, but no words were spoken the day after or any day for that matter. I had woken up alone, wondering where you were. The next time I saw you, you could barely look at me. So like the tough guy I was and still am, I erased you in a way, forgot that I had these fucking twisted feelings and urges to just grab you then and there.
People say its lust. Others say its love. I was straight, I had never touched a guy before, but since that incident, I knew there wasn’t just two types of love out there. Genders didn’t matter because my other half was out there somewhere looking for me… my other half was the part of me that was missing and it didn’t matter if it was a woman or a man, it didn’t mean shit to me after that.

I secretly wished that you were it, I swear to fucking god. I prayed with all my might that you would one day just wake up and love me. It sounds gay but I want to be tender to someone, to take care of somebody that would need me.

You weren’t the one, Axl.

All I got was a slap in the face along with law suits and your fucking bickering. I’m not the same kid that started out in your band in 1985. Eleven years have passed by and I’m a wreck, trying to put things back together while crying my heart out writing this fucking letter, which might not even be sent to you.
I’ll probably stack it somewhere, like in a safety box, where no-one will ever read it. Or maybe I’ll burn it… I don’t know yet.

I’d give anything for a chance with you but I know its going to end up bad. If things were different… if you were different or maybe if I knew how to handle you.

Maybe if it were different, I’d never fall for you and we’d be friends forever and fuck you if you say I sound like a chick in junior-high. Just think of the wonders we’d create if we were still together, all of us, Izzy, Steven, Duff, you and I.

I don’t know if I’m going to pull it through… the drugs are too much. They’re my only way out. I need you, I want you by my side you fucking prick. I can’t do this alone, please help me. I’m desperate.

Don’t laugh at me. Jesus, I can’t stop crying.

Wow, look at me, mister fucking guitar god crying his eyes out. Must be a funny sight…

Have you ever replayed a moment in your head until you get a headache? I have, you probably remember it as well… Our last show.

It was so hard for me not to faint that night. I was either making the biggest mistake of my life or being free.
They say people are born to die free. Well, was I born for all the stuff that fate had in store for me? Possibly…

I won’t fucking let anything dictate what was fate or not, cosmic alignment, call it karma, I don’t give a fuck. You and I, there’s never going to be another version of us.

I love you for all you are and all you’re never going to be. And when its all ending, I wanna say it all, confess what’s been eating me alive all this time.

Its funny… you could be mine…

Slash.

**

The rain hadn’t stopped for four days straight. A lone figure was sitting outside, soaked to the bone and silently sobbing.
If it wasn’t for the rain, you would have seen the tears, burning hot tears escaping through the eyes of the man. He wasn’t feeling anymore, the rain had numbed him… He was holding onto a letter, folded carefully under his arm so the storm wouldn’t ruin it.

It was all he had, that letter, to remind him, to prove what he had lived and what he had felt. It was all spiraling downwards… the rain was washing it all away, his pain as well.