:: Echoes: Wish You Were Here :: ~So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, Blue skies from pain. Can you tell a green field From a cold steel rail? A smile from a veil? Do you think you can tell?~ Someone found you that night, naked and shivering in the blue glow of the moon. A compassionate soul who recognized you but didn’t exploit. She was kind and gentle. A nurse she said. As the salt air whipped your curls, she dressed you and spoke in hushed tones. Wrapped you in a car blanket and drove you home. “Thank you,” you whispered blankly before stepping out. “Stay strong,” she told you. “Don’t let them take your soul, Justin.” You nodded and went inside, straight to your room. You were glad that Britney wasn’t in town. The house was quiet, eerily so, but it lent you time to think. To sink into your bed and huddle under the covers. Wrap the silence around your body and think of when your life had become a script for others to own. You let the tears fall because they were cleansing. There was a time when you associated them with weakness--like when Lance had collapsed. You sobbed openly but he told you to stop--to pull your childish ass together and get out on that stage. To sing and dance and be his puppet. Make the money. Please the fans. Not worry about the boy going to the hospital. He slapped your face and shook your shoulders as spittle flew from his fleshy lips. “Lance is only a back up,” he spat. “You’re the golden child. You’re the one they want. They touch you, Justin, because they crave you. Lance’s survival is secondary to the good of the group. Think about Chris, JC and Joey. You don‘t want to ruin them do you?” So you went on stage that night with teary eyes and a heart that felt dead. It was still a blur to you--memories that had to be implanted by photos and online accounts. You kind of remember that odd shade of green Lance had been. And if you really tried, you could conjure up images of him grabbing your sleeve as he vomited into a towel. Mostly you didn’t want to think about that anymore. Not now especially. Not with Lance gone from your life so abruptly. Wasn’t it sad, you thought, that he’d made the choice to go? That you, once again, had no choice in the matter. You were the one with the diamond, but you had no control. Not as much as you should. Never as much as you wanted. Choice? Perhaps. Or maybe it was simply the fact you had a public image to uphold and Lance was the closest thing to genuine you had. ~And did they get you to trade Your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze? Cold comfort for change? And did you exchange A walk on part in the war For a lead role in a cage?~ Funny how when you were alone, the silence scared you. Lance always held you and hummed with his lips pressed right up against your ear. He would whisper to you until you drifted off when the silence was deafening--and tell you how much you meant in his life. How he wanted to sit on the beach with you when all the craziness was over and make love to you for eternity. Now the silence was gaining strength, causing you to shiver. You huddle deeper under the comforter and clamp your eyes shut trying to fall into a slumber. But God, you wish Lance was there to hold you. To stop the shakes that plague you. You pull the sheets right up to your nose and your cheeks itch where the tears are drying. They taste like Lance’s tears. So similar. Only his are just from physical pain--he only cries when his body can’t take anymore. You take physical pain well. Hadn’t you finished the show where you slid across stage and broke  your thumb? Smashed it right into the pile of amps without so much as a flinch. You had trouble with the emotional aspect--the part of life Lance helped you with. Now he was gone--like a whisper in the breeze. He was the one who sobbed from bodily pain. It made sense that he could break apart from you in such a clinical manner. So to speak. ~How I wish, how I wish you were here. We're just two lost souls Swimming in a fish bowl, Year after year, Running over the same old ground. What have we found? The same old fears. Wish you were here.~ The phone rings so much, and so often, you wish you would have remembered to shut it off. It’s shrill and unforgiving--a hard reminder that you’re still alive. You think it could be Lance. But it’s only been a few hours, you remind yourself, barely enough time for him to be settled into his hotel. A spring uncoils in your stomach. It’s white hot and searing, full of this horrendous pain. An uncontrollable heat that mourns for what losses you’ve suffered. When you open your eyes, nothing meets you. The ceiling is blank, a canvas for dreams, and you stare hard at it hoping to catch a glimpse of what you thought you wanted. Maybe its Lance returning to fall on his knees and press his face into your stomach. Beg forgiveness and tell you how very wrong he was to abandon you. Maybe its Britney returning home unexpectedly with her cheery smile and a tall glass of seaweed juice, trying to get you to drink it because “Lord knows your soul could use a little purification.” Whatever that means. Or Chris. Maybe it was the eyes of your best friend up there, sorrowful for having started an avalanche he couldn’t stop. Momma with her sparkly rings and custom Harley. Maybe that was her up on the canvas wearing your sweat on her back. When you blink you imagine you see stars twinkling-dancing along as if nothing was wrong. And you can remember those stars, sitting beneath them with Lance and Joey, JC and Chris. Fourth of July during Pop Odyssey. You remember how they lit off fireworks that made you cringe from the sound and close proximity. How Lance wrapped his arms around you and laughed in that deep, rich tone he possessed. “They can’t hurt you, Justin,” he whispered, watching as yet another one shrieked into the sky. “They know what they’re doing.” “I’m not scared,” you defended, pushing out of his embrace. “I’m not a fucking kid, Lance. You need to stop with all that daddy shit. You’re only two years older. Two.” It was the hurt in those green eyes that haunted you for weeks later, even after you apologized profusely. Even after you went  so far as to write him a poem. You sat under those stars and strummed your guitar, pondering all that was wrong with the world--with you. Lance had come from the shadows that night, a beer in one hand, your poem in the other. “Do you mean all this?” he’d asked. Someone had started a roaring bonfire and looking at him in the orange glow, your heart danced. He was all you ever wanted--all you ever needed in the circus of your life. “I mean it,” you mumbled, still unsure of your own motives. Why had you barked at him? You’d been around and around with it, all through the show. It was all you could do to keep your mind on the lyrics. “I always mean shit like that Lance. It just comes outta me.” You shrugged because it was hard to explain yourself to anyone--even him after a fight. So much emotion was bottled up inside of you and often you worried if it was too intense for Lance. Too much love. Too much passion. Sitting under that night sky, you wondered if there was a chance Lance was scared to accept all you had. Creativity could only unleash so much of that pent up fervor. There were only so many songs you could craft to soothe your soul. Staring into Lance’s eyes that night, you saw first-hand the struggle he had with his love. And his place in your life. “I love you, Justin,” he’d told you under those stars. “For a lifetime. I may not be the most poetic guy around, or the most romantic, but God, I love you. This life, it’s not real.” You looked around at all the madness, the caterers packing up and the tents being disassembled. You stared at the crew busily breaking down the stage and stray friends who had stuck around long after the final note had been sung. “It’s a fishbowl,” you snorted bitterly, tossing your guitar to the ground. “A tiny fishbowl, and the bigger we get, the smaller it gets. Pretty soon there won’t be any water at all and we’ll all suffocate.” Your eyes were distant--blurred--while you spoke those words. You still weren’t sure where they had come from. Lance told you later that you were nearly inconsolable that night in the hotel room. You paced and drank, teetered on the verge of tears. Yet another memory your psyche protected you from. You hunch deeper under your covers and ignore the flashes on that ceiling because you can’t handle it. And somewhere you kind of wish that nurse had let you freeze out in that ocean or taken you home with her where life was text book. Mommy, daddy, brothers and sisters, home-cooked meals, high school, college, job. Marriage, kids, nine-to-five. Ninety-nine percent of people had it. But you are the diamond, you remind yourself. And you have to shine. :: Act III :: :: Echoes ::