by 

Xxànn/Shawn Χρυσόστομος Newcomm Smith

Not a hand. Not a smile. Not a wink. Not even a whiff of hair product. Since 2019, I have not been remotely close to physical, spiritual, or emotional connection with a woman. Maybe it's my eyes…

I recently had a one night fling – if you can even call it that, with a woman I met on a dating app. Historically, I have had very little success with these products; likewise with dating apps. I have tried Tinder; the Bumble; the Plenty of Fish, and each and every time, I just do my routine morning autoerotism, and immediately think: "not worth the trouble," and delete the app. Because when I feel there's a connection with someone, they stop communicating, or maybe they themselves perform some form of autoerotism and realize I'm not worth the trouble either. 

But this one night fling was filled to the brim with too many symbolic overlaps that I cannot shake or ignore…

But first, for the past 18 months, my life has been on the fritz. In 2023, the Film Industry flipped on its head. I started in this industry on exactly St. Patrick's day 2015, as an Office Production Assistant (PA) on a show with Wesley Snipes and Philip Winchester called The Player, which was almost immediately cancelled; from that day, I've worked as: Office PA; Casting Assistant; Construction Accounting PA; Locations PA; Set PA; and, finally, a Camera Utility. Life was moving well…well, at least financially. But something (many things?) have always been missing. 

On top of the dying (dead) Film Industry, the lease on my place I'd lived in for the past eight years was abruptly terminated, in September of 2023, and I was moving out by early November…into: 1) Storage and 2) My mother's one bedroom apartment. Recipe for disaster. 

In 2014, I'd already tried living with my mom again, but I had a girlfriend who moved in too. Again: precise recipe for disaster. We ended up breaking up, but before that – and bless her heart – she referred me for my first job as an Office PA. This saved me. I'd been working in a deli at a Co-Op, and my degree at the University was being withheld over a simple math credit, which I ended up finally getting in 2021 – and backdated to 2014!

So in 2023, living with my mom, the arguments immediately ensued; by Thanksgiving, I was sleeping on my friend's couch for a couple nights, who ironically lived right next door to the place I lost my lease on. 

By December, my mom and I reconciled and I started sleeping on her couch again. Then, in January, my best friend since I was fourteen, Alex, died. We hadn't been talking for a couple years, but the death sent a spike into my heart and soul. A few days after his funeral, my mom was getting angry or frustrated over some petty thing (this is her MO), and I started crying and begged her to be more positive. I couldn't take it anymore. Then we had another nasty, horrible argument, and I left and started sleeping in my car. I had about $6,000 in savings, so I checked into an Extended Stay.

Oh yea: did I mention I also had a cat. His name is Jack, but I call him Bubby. So in March of 2024, I'm living in an extended stay and losing my mind. Truly losing it. Where had my life gone, and where was it now? 

A dear friend reached out and asked how I'd been, and, bless him and his brother's hearts, they offered to let me live in a spare room…where they found Alex dead. 

I accepted. I had no other choice. I (and my cat) was practically homeless, or at least getting there. So from March of 2024, I've been living in a room filled with all my beautiful wooden furniture. But these were ugly times. Smoking cannabis every single day and watching my roommate play video games.

No jobs were coming. No skills in customer service, as I'd been used to the film industry for the past decade. A few opportunities arose, like working for a day on an interview for the Criterion Collection, with Frances Lee McCain, who, by the way, I'd already worked with on a show called Midnight, Texas; she actually called me one morning because production hadn't sent her a map to set; I told her about this at the interview, and at the end, I said "call me anytime," which got a laugh. 

So I did the interview; a commercial for Pilot Travel Center as a Camera Assistant; some stagehand jobs; and finally, in October of 2024, a local Non-Profit, the Friends of the Orphan Signs, contacted me to participate in a design charette, and they were gonna pay me five-hundred dollars! "Wow," I thought, "I'm gonna be paid for my art?" 

But I was still in a hole, emotionally. A deep, dark, seemingly bottomless hole. I was telling it my secrets after I'd sealed the hole shut, but, luckily, I'd missed a spot and a little light was still leaking in.

All it takes is a little spark 

Charles Bukowski said that. My friend Alex turned me onto Bukowski. We both immediately identified with him. The underdog. And yes: I am a Cleveland Browns fan.

I'd been talking with my Grandpa throughout the year, expressing how my frustrations and inescapable turmoil were escalating, and he sensed it. Out of the blue, he contacted me around December 16th and said that he and Grandma wanted to fly me out to Denver to stay with them for a week in Golden. I cautiously accepted the offer. Politically, my family and I do not see eye to eye, but they put forth a HUGE effort to help me get back onto my feet: spiritually and emotionally. Then my Aunt offered to pay a resume building service to draft up a professional resume. Amazing! Unconditional love. 

Also, back in May of 2023, I'd submitted a screenplay to the Nichol Fellowship, and by September, I'd placed in the top 15%. Pretty amazing for a first swing, yea? 

While I was in Golden, my mom's cousin – a Story Analyst for Paramount, agreed to read and critique my screenplay, and she sent back detailed notes and encouragement. 

Did I mention I'd also been smoking cannabis for the past twenty years? 

Well, soon after returning from a fruitful trip to Golden – in terms of both reconnecting with an estranged family and the renewed sense of meaning, I quit smoking cannabis and got a job at a running shoe store by mid-January of this year, 2025. 

This job ended how I'd imagined it would: cursing at the overbearing owner – he was truly aggressive and weird, it wasn't just me who felt this. This was mid-February. It was a truly performative and amazing way I quit, and it felt great. 

I quickly had another job, working as a Valet at a brand new boutique hotel, which lasted one day, as I'd been offered a Bell Attendant job at a well-known historic inn. Well, this job also didn't last long. Ya see, I'd quit smoking weed, but I started again, telling myself: only at night…which turned into before work, and after, and then during. That job fell apart pretty quickly, and I was gone by April. 

I'd been scraping away the sealed mud entrance to my hole, but, once again, it was getting sealed over.

I decided it was time to pull out my Pension from Motion Picture Insurance. I took some stagehand jobs here and there, but this is dangerous work, and there are drugged out people at those. Highly unrecommended.

I'd started the paperwork for my pension, but didn't get it submitted and approved for another three months, but in that time, my return had increased three-hundred dollars, on top of thousands. "Sweet," I thought. 

But…something was still missing. Predictability. Routine. Insurance. A partner, maybe? Circadian rhythm, surely. 

By the end of September, I quit smoking weed again, and signed up on a dating app.

I went on four dates, and they all seemed fine, but either they felt no "connection," or just simply weren't interested. Was I surprised? Of course not. Who wants an unemployed partner? No one. Who wants a crawling-out-of-a-hole, desperate partner? No one. 

So, now that you have the backstory (not all of it, of course), we get to…the Bull. 

I was scanning the dating app, x'ing profile after profile after profile, and landed on a person, "Sharon" we'll call her, and the only thing I said was a reply to one of their photos: "Dope." Ugh, so puerile of me. But she responded! We flirted, and then talked and flirted (sexually) on the phone for five hours – from 11:30pm until 4:30am… Weird. She was from a city similar in size and population – but most definitely not as hardcore, as mine. She'd moved here to be closer to the city her mom lived in, as she'd previously lived somewhere in the south, near the Gulf. 

So we decided we'd meet up for lunch the next day. 

Remember way back when I mentioned "not a hand". Well, the hand finally presented itself…

We met at a place in an area of town I despise…the dreaded Midtown Heights. I'm a downtown cat. I hate the suburbs and "heights". I bounced around with my mom in the shitty suburbs in the heights all through childhood. I love "thick" spaces, as professor and philosopher Andrew Light refers to them as. Thick Spaces have record stores, cafes, and are rich in character. The heights have none of that. It's a thin space. Just stripmall-after-stripmall, and cars and roads. I remember driving down Juan Tabo Blvd. from Montgomery Blvd., going south, as a kid with my mom, and just hating the view when I'd look all the way down the boulevard. It had shining cars and heat signatures, like waves of a mirage. It was and still is absolutely hideous to me. 

So Sharon and I decided to meet at a restaurant, I guess as a sort of getting-to-know-ya-for-real type rendezvous. I dressed in my best wool sweater, that has a color similar to dried blood, but with fibers throughout colored baby blue and goldenrod; you have to get real close to see them.

I waited outside and it was raining a little bit. That kind of rain that feels like when a group of moths fly over you and pee just a little bit. A spitting rain, they call it. 

Then she arrived. 

"Action," I thought. 

She didn't wear any makeup; a plus, in my book! 

We took a seat. 

Years earlier, my friend – who I'm living with now, said he always feels compelled to have a little physical contact with someone he's interested in. Well, I might have taken this a little too far.

As Sharon and I sat down, she took out a microfiber cloth to clean off her glasses, and something came over me that I will never really have any explanation for…I reached out and took her hand and held it. This took her off guard. "Boundaries," my friend Rocky reminded me when I told him this story. 

Well shit, loneliness and solitude, I thought, and, above all, a profound necessity for human touch, ya fucker! But he's right: boundaries. 

I pulled away from Sharon's hand and turned bright red from embarrassment…well, at least I think I did. "What was I thinking," I thought. But, surprisingly, she said, "you can hold my hand." Relief. And I did. "Your hand is cold," she said. Her hand was really warm. My hands always run cold, especially when I'm nervous. 

I caressed her hand and we got to talking, ordered food and picked at it a little.

Under the table, I held her knee, and she held my hand some more. 

Earlier, I'd noticed in her pictures, she had some gold charms on a necklace, and she was wearing it as we ate. I inquired. She seemed a little reluctant to discuss them, but eventually opened up and said: "This is a Cornicello". She was half-Italian. A cornicello is a golden bull horn charm worn typically by Italians. It's for good luck and to keep evil spirits away. 

"Huh," I responded. 

We both just kinda picked at our food. We'd decided, during our hours-long conversation, that we'd drive somewhere, a park, and get to know each other better…which we did.

So we boxed up our food. 

I put my to-go box in my car and then got in hers. Within seconds, I kissed her. Action. We tried finding a park or something, to park next to. 

We kept kissing, and talking about a place to find to escalate the intimacy. 

"I can't think," I said, "I gotta get my head outta the clouds."

We found a park. 

She put up her sunshade, and again…action!

As we were kissing, suddenly she squeezed her lips together like little lips and kissed me. Little birdy kisses. I thought, "oh how cute," and followed suit. It was so, so adorable. 

Then she laid my head on her chest. "Woah," I thought, "what the hell?" I was a little confused, but complied…and it felt great. I was filling a "hole"! At least for her, but certainly for me, as well. 

She kissed me softly on the lips

She took my hand without a sound

Such a happy ever-after

You mother fuckers kiss the ground

I kept singing those lyrics by Shane MacGowan of The Pogues for weeks afterward…

So, we wrapped up all car activity and decided she'd come over to my place later. Earlier, in our messages on the dating app, she asked if I lived alone. I replied, "I have roommates." "Darn," she replied. Damn, I thought. That's gotta be a red flag to her. 

Earlier, I'd mentioned I quit smoking cannabis. Well, in the week preceding this rendezvous with Sharon, I noticed a change that affected my morning ritual. I was 39 years old at the time (now 40!). I was having anxiety issues, sweating, and…arousal ones. This was not a case of erectile dysfunction. I was having cannabis withdrawals! And it happened in her car.

I'd vaguely alluded to it on the phone with her. But I chalked it up to me just needing a warm body to actually get me into action, and boy was I wrong.

After Sharon left for an obligation she had to attend to, I immediately looked up ways to resolve this issue: red ginseng and pure dark chocolate were my ticket to paradise. Immediately I went to the Co-Op and purchased exactly those items; and maybe a Kombucha, because, what the hell, why not?

So I'm eating the dark chocolate and drinking water with several (whatever the recommended dose was) drops of Red Ginseng added. 

After a couple hours, she finally texts me: "is it okay to come over?" 

"Of course," I replied. 

Luckily, the roommates were either at work or deep in sleep when she arrived.

When she got in my room, I closed the door and she sat down on my maroon velvet canapé; I told you, beautiful furniture. I tell people I got my aesthetic sensibility from Sherlock Holmes and Great Grandma. 

So Sharon sits on the canapé and I offer her a foot stool.

"Wait," I said, "I'm going to sit next to you," and I kissed her and it was on. 

We were naked within seconds. I'd said to her earlier, when I sent a picture of my body, that I'd been very "domestic" for the past year-and-a-half…

Indeed.

"So I'm a little thin right now," I continued.

When I was working, I was definitely a little thicker, in muscle, but I've always been on the thin and lanky side. Rubber-ball and hose physique, I call it, like old cartoon characters.

So I did my thing, and then she started trying to do her thing with my…thing, and nothing was happening. 

"Uh oh," I thought and most definitely heard her thinking. 

On the dating app, she'd put "short term, open to long." Well, her intentions were probably actually just short term.

And right now, my below-the-waste state of things was definitely appearing short term.

"Just sit on my face," I said, "and shut up, bitch". And she did. I didn't really call her a "bitch," though.

Then I decided to massage her feet and back. Boom. Easy. 

I also didn't tell her to "shut up."

Here's where things started becoming…surreal.

As I started rubbing her feet, I noticed a tattoo, the monad, which is a circle with a dot in the middle. Not exactly unusual, but absolutely unusual for me…

One year earlier, to almost the exact day, I'd designed that piece of art work for the Friends of the Orphan Signs, as mentioned earlier; in that design…I'd put the monad. It's a symbol that means wholeness or, when broken down etymologically, in Greek: monas 'unity' and μόνος (monos) 'alone'. It basically means: all is one. 

"Huh," I said to Sharon,"you have a monad tattoo." 

Again, not totally unusual, but certainly interesting. 

During the summer, I sleep only with a sheet; I run hot during the night. I also sleep on a very comfortable blanket that I use during winter. I basically use that blanket as a bottom sheet, as my previous one kinda fell apart over time, and not due to low-quality material (I don't use any polyester materials in my life), I just toss and turn when I sleep, and often buzz the hair off my chest, which creates a coarse surface. 

But Sharon wasn't down with that. She wanted a normal blanket. The one I actually use during winter wasn't washed yet for the cold season.

Lying next to her, I said, regrettably, "I like you." I can't remember how she responded to that. 

We sorta fell asleep and she woke up at 2:30am and I walked her to her car, and she left. I kissed her one more time, just a peck, and that was that. 

But that was not that in my head the next day. "Oh shiiiiit," I thought, "time to overthink," which is my MO, and, this time, it was no different. 

She'd texted that she'd gotten home and was "warm under the covers," and I said "I miss you," blah blah blah. All the wrong shit. 

Then texted her a cute (I thought) set of emojis. Gross. But I always make that stuff unique. (And, by the way: I never, ever write "lol" or anything of the sort to anyone, and I never have and never will.)

She said she was "soooo tired." I offered to bring her a coffee or a Thai Tea, or something. She was good. She's a grown up.

Then I addressed my arousal issues. Her reply was a little off-putting, but lighthearted: "Sounds complicated, lol." 

I replied: "nevermind, forget what I said, just keep the momentum."

Well, then my day of overthinking started. Way, waaaaaay overthinking. About everything. Had to go on a drive and just completely avoid texting her anything. And the longer I didn't hear back from her, the overthinking escalated: shouldn't have said that; should've done this; was it the cat's litter box in my room (hidden, of course, as it always has been); was it the roommate getting home after 11pm and watching stuff in the living room while I was in the middle of not being able to perform; was it because I said the last show I went to was jazz (it wasn't, after I thought about it for a while, afterward)? 

Finally, at the end of the day, I texted: "So do you wanna carve pumpkins together?" And followed it up with: "real, actual pumpkins." I didn't want it to be interpreted as some sort of sexual innuendo. Again: overthinking. 

She replied, saying she didn't have "time this season."

"This season," I thought, "that's a strange reply."

Sharon was a dark person, in aesthetic and seemingly mindset. Based on photos shared, this was somebody trying hard to stand out in the little city she was raised in, clearly. But to me, I've seen all that stuff: in both my heart and mind, as well as the friends I had. I don't have tattoos, but I do have "tattoos" internally. I don't entirely wear my heart of darkness on my sleeve, but she definitely does. 

Then she hit me with exactly what I knew was coming: she's not looking for a serious connection. 

"Awww, man, " I thought, "shit." 

Shit.

Then she poured out all the propaganda, mental health struggles, etc. According to her, she hadn't dated anyone since 2018; definitely had sexual encounters though.

After a couple weeks, I started listening to Eric Clapton's song, Change the World, and part of the chorus goes:

I will be the sunlight in your universe

You would think my love was really something good

But it just doesn't sit right with me, so I started singing this instead:

You would be the moonlight in my universe

You would think my love was really just a curse

Better. Less self-centered. 

I hadn't dated anyone since 2015; no sexual rendezvous since 2019, and the last one didn't even end well, in either orgasm or peace.

Sharon's text also said, "I think you're rad as hell, but I need to focus on myself and my craft at the moment."

"Craft? What craft," I thought. I have a craft too, but it was on a massive hiatus. 

Craft?

I pushed back a little, but I soon gave up and respected her wishes. How couldn't I? I had to. I'm not going to beg or grovel, and I didn't. 

I said something that I profoundly regretted: "I just must not be the one." At that moment, I knew the time wasn't right for me. The one??? What the hell was I thinking? Oh shit, that was so, so dumb, and surely she thought the same thing. I don't believe in all that cockamamie trash about "the one"! Ugh… 

She replied: "I don't know if I'll ever find the 'one,' and I'm okay with that."

Then, she wrapped things up, and I let her know that I appreciate and respect her feelings.

But I did not let go. 

I sorta texted her the next day, not expecting a reply, and didn't get one. And of course, my overthinking-self went into maximum overdrive, and a week-and-a-half later, I texted her again, letting her know that we were "on the same" page about a non-serious connection, and that she found a "cool, cooooool fuckin' (stray) cat." And she did. In all my life, I've never had the self-esteem to respect myself so much to call myself "cool," or even passionate, or an "artist," but I fucking am, and it's high time I admitted it. Not just to her, but my own fucking self. I am an artist, I care and am caring, and I am cool. Cool as fuck.

Of course I didn't ever hear back from her, and still haven't. 

But then I started noticing things as I thought more and more, and it got so profound and mindblowing that I couldn't let it go, which is why I'm writing this and brought you all here in the first place.

We had similar names: "Shawn" and "Sharon". 

"Sh Sh names," I said to her on the dating app messages. 

"You're right, she replied, "we do both have Sh Sh names". 

I've always joked that I sometimes almost respond to someone saying "shit" or "shut up," which I also mentioned to Sharon.

We came from similarly sized cities, in both population and land coverage. 

She wore her darkness on her sleeve; I wore mine in my heart. 

The monad symbol I'd included in my artwork a year earlier. 

And then there were deeper things…

When I'd reached out to caress her hand, at the restaurant, I noticed a silver ring with a purple gemstone. Well, a year-and-a-half earlier, while going through a shirt from Alex, the friend who'd passed away, I found a ring that looked exactly the same. 

When I noticed it around Sharon's finger, I thought: "well that's strange."

Then things got stranger…

I mentioned that she had a cornicello around her neck. Well, when she and I were in my room, above our heads, on my book shelf was a three volume facsimile of a surrealist magazine from the 1930s and 40s called… The Minotaure. (I've watched My Dinner With Andre, obviously). 

What is all this, I started thinking: the monad, the bull horn and minotaure, the similar cities we grew up in, the ring, similar sounding names, and the preference for Halloween over any other dumb holiday. 

She's having mental health struggles and I was too…

When she sent me a picture on the dating app, of her in her room, I saw a guitar. "Oh," she replied, "I just have that, I don't really play it." I got a snare for a gift once, and bought a trumpet at the beginning of this year. 

We were both undedicated but well meaning people with ambitions for playing an instrument.

This was all so strange. 

One of my aunts (I told a few of them) pointed out: "that Monad symbol is also like a bullseye target".

Huh.

Well, after the dust started settling, I had an argument with one of my roommates. I felt righteous, but my approach and response could have been much softer.

Since that day, five weeks ago, every single day I've gotten out of my house and back into the world. Then I started working on my craft again. And making friends; running into old ones; going to shows at the record store; seeing George Cables rip it on the piano; joining a weekly supportive group of people looking to heal; offered to work on a proposal for a gallery show of my art.

And I started crying again.

Living. 

He who binds to himself a joy 

Does the winged life destroy

But he who kisses the joy as it flies 

Lives in eternity’s sunrise

In Sharon's texts, she said: "we shared an amazing moment together, and for now, that is all." And it was an amazing moment, but I wanted it to keep going. Not to redeem myself sexually, but to bring the beauty out of someone other than myself. When I sing the song Venus as a Boy by Björk, and get to the lyrics:

He sets off the beauty in her

I always choke up. 

But I need that. I am the one who needs to bring out the beauty of my own self. And it started happening. It has not fully revealed itself, but it's certainly warming up, and my life has changed. I've transcended, and I'm going to keep holding the note. 

I told many people this story of Sharon and I over the past three weeks. One person, Christo, said to me: "I think you should get back on the dating app. Get back out there!" 

I did…and then saw her there again, and, against my better judgement and, admittedly, a little bitter, I said to her: "Dope! Perfect closure." And this was said to the same picture I'd initially commented on. 

Even since that time, I've changed. I shouldn't have said that, but it brought me closer to closure. 

I liked her. We had a connection. 

My friend Manny said to me: "how long was this?"

I replied: "Just like a day or two."

He said, in disbelief and ready to laugh: "What? Not like three months?"

Well, that one day was making up for six years of no human contact or touch, or at least the human touch and connection I wanted. 

Exactly four weeks after Sharon and I had our connection, I went to a show in Santa Fe for The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Alex introduced me to them, and so much amazing music; among much else, he's who expanded my musical sensibilities.

I decided to drive up early. I took Bernalillo up to the Algodones exit, partly because my car needs a little bit of a tune up, but mostly because I hate the chaos of fast cars on the freeway. It was a very peaceful drive, and continued when I got on the freeway and found a Semi to follow behind, because they always go slower up hills. It was perfect!

I wore my rare and original Sheila E. "Glamorous Life" tour shirt, and, after weeks of not consuming cannabis, decided I'd take one final toke before the show. I also brought one of Alex's earlobe gauges in my pocket so he'd be "there" with me. 

The show was great and went (mostly) without a hitch. 

So afterward, I got in my car, threw my glass pipe and glass jar of weed out the window, and that was that.

As I got off at the Algodones exit, to continue my peaceful journey home, about five minutes into the drive, something was in my path. I couldn't even see the road anymore. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a cow with a patterned style coat, which made it super obvious. And then I noticed the next thing: exactly thirty feet ahead of my car, in the middle of the road, was a pure black Bull. I hit the brakes. 

"There's the Bull again," I thought, "what the fuck is going on?"

My favorite movie is by the Persian-born Director Amir Naderi, Manhattan By Numbers. It's a story of a man, George Murphy, whose family has left him, and he's in serious debt, and unemployed. He walks all around Manhattan looking for "Tom Ryan," and calling anyone he can to ask to borrow money. (Spoiler) When he's lost all sense of reason, reality, and is absolutely at his wit's end, a young man approaches him, and stuffs a wad of money in his hand. George had gone into a textile store asking for Tom Ryan, and the store owner was harshly curt with him. The young man who later gives George the money happened to be watching this, as he was an employee in the store. 

After George gets whatever amount of money he gets, a truly beautiful track starts playing by Gato Barbieri, an Argentinian saxophonist, who scored the entire film. And George, who'd found himself on Wall Street at the famous Charging Bull, begins teasing and taunting the bull with the money, and the final scene we see of George is him atop the bull, in ecstasy: 

When Sharon was rubbing my head and running her fingers through my hair, I said outloud: "it feels so good to be touched." And it fucking healed me. 

I deleted my dating app profile when she told me "no serious connection," and I said to her: "I'm not unmatching with you, I'm just deleting this app, because I just knew this was going to happen". 

Well, as I said, when I made a new profile, and saw her again, sent her the message, I deleted it again…but made another one, and she kept showing up. 

I didn't have it in my heart to "x" her, so I didn't. Any time she'd show up again, I'd just close the app, and reopen it a little later, and new matches would show up, but, inevitably, she'd show up again. 

Then, finally, she was gone. 

And then I deleted the app once and for all. "I'm better than that," I thought. 

I'm better than that. 

Now I'm back in my craft. My friends have all been so supportive, and some of them brutally honest. I love them all for this. 

Amanda said to me, while we were playing pool the other day: "You dodged a bull". 

I don't know if I did or not. We'll never know. 

Christo said to me a few days ago: "your change in lifestyle sounds like a metanoia," which means, a change of mind or a change of heart. 

A few nights ago, I missed the debut show of a new local group of musicians called Astral Gardens. The venue they performed at had a live video, which I watched, and the last song was truly magical, and the lyrics to the chorus are:

Little bird don’t you die

I’m gonna warm your lungs, I’m gonna set things right

This immediately reminded me of the Bukowski poem Bluebird: 

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and
inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works? you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?

I come from a family of broken people, who were full of anger (rightfully so, in some respects: abusive dad on my mom's side). I'd been so full of anger in my life, and hate. It was my friends' and I's religion. And then it started to get to be too much for me, which is why I asked Alex to move out of the place we shared, in 2020; and why I broke ties with practically all of my friends from High School and Middle School.

I didn't want to hate or be angry anymore. I want to love and be loved. I've been so positive these past few weeks, that my body started going through anger withdrawals. It's okay to be angry sometimes, but just to not cling on to it. To let it go.  

Who knows if I'll ever hear from Sharon again. It'd be nice, and I'd probably burst into tears if I did. But I'm gonna cry anyway. 

My experience with her and getting back out in the world granted me nostos, or a return home. 

I'm finally back Home.