Shell/Shel

I woke up from thoughts of you two, woke up by myself, and went on a walk with Jamie to Shell to get cream to make coffee. We made a little detour to the library on the way back so Jamie could pick up some children's books, and I found Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece. Shell brought me back to Shel. And I sat on our couch a short while later reading the book that I hadn't read in a few years, washing myself in nostalgic thoughts of childhood, of pasts, of might have been futures, and saw what a cool fucking book this was, saw howHedwig ripped off its idea from here, but even more so I saw myself reflected in the rolling smiley face, the power of literature, of its ability to tell us something about ourselves, something we think we already knew, but said in a way that let's us say "yeah, yeah - that's the stuff - right on," my life here in a children's book, all of ours, and something meaningful being said in so few words and with the accompaniment of basic ink illustrations about the human condition, about motherfucking life.

Until one day, lo and behold!

"I've found my missin' piece," it sang,
"I've found my missin' piece
So grease my knees and fleece my bees
I've found my..."

"Wait a minute," said the piece.
"Before you go greasing your knees
and fleecing your bees...

"I am not your missing piece.
I am nobody's piece.
I am my own piece.
And even if I was
somebody's missing piece
I don't think I'd be yours!"

"Oh," it said sadly,
"I'm sorry to have bothered you."
And on it rolled.

And on, I fucking roll. The rolling is the thing, it is what life is for Silverstein, what it is for me, and so all I can do is say "Oh" sadly when Andrew tells me to fuck off, when he tells me to do whatever the fuck I want with his bracelet that I was holding before I pissed him off, the bracelet I tried to hand back to him, but which he tells me to throw away. But, I didn't. I pocketed it, holding it to myself tightly, letting it serve as a subsitute missing piece. And "Oh" is said sadly again, said perhaps even more sadly when I see Sean and Andrew engaged in conversation for a long while after both had told me no, told me to take it back, I don't want it - makes me wonder if they ever did.

And on, I roll, I fucking roll. Rolling towards the next missing piece, leaving the wall to the soundtrack of the Rolling Stones' "Beast of Burden," singing along sadly, rolling all the way home.