I've been intentionally inexpressive about the recent loss of a friend, because I knew anything I could have said or done would have been insufficient, and even as I type, I find these words destitute of the situation's deserved earnestness. I didn't want to change my display picture to an image of both of us, or quote a lyric from one of his compositions, or cite hollow gone-but-still-here platitudes, because I felt that those gestures could not, do not, do the emotion justice. Saying anything is an uphill battle for me. But I guess Sisyphus continuously pushed his boulder upwards not because it was functional, but because the alternative would have been to let it crush him.
What I remember most vividly of our interactions were the candid talks after our shows, during drives, and verse writing. He wasn't only a peer musically, he was a brother in private times of intuition and contemplation; in shared righteous indignation at plutocracy masquerading as equal opportunity. He was a deep dude both in verse and in thought, and I hope he knew how much I learned from him.
I was never under the assumption that the world was a fair place, but this cements that sentiment in cold granite. The revelation that I'm still here though, motivates me to continue to try to do what he did every day that I've known him: try to change it for the better.
