I slept well. Another morning of Aaron cuddles. We spoke to Mary Ellen, my sister Janice and my grandmother Frances for Mother’s Day. And I went for a walk. 8th Day outside in a row! I walked to the grocery store for salad dressing and picked up a few other items, all healthier than I sometimes do, and I wasn’t even tempted for sweets or chips. That’s not always the case. Aaron cleaned up a bunch of stuff that only he could do and we just seem to be having a nice day.
My haul from the grocery store. 05-10-26.
On my walk, I listened to a mix of Tori Amos songs, and I put on the Tori shirt that Sean gave me 25 years ago. It was just 10 minutes or so of giving him a moment. It was nice. Respectful. Healing. Sometimes I need to do that with people I’ve lost along the way.
I had a rough evening yesterday. I was already a little sad when I wrote yesterday but I wasn’t sure why. I had listened to the new Tori Amos album. Later, in the shower, I realized that Sean Mobley would never hear this album, despite him enjoying her music even more than I do and it hit so hard that I wept, which I don’t often do when I think about Sean. I get a little down sometimes when I think about him, but I seldom shed tears. I’m not sure why. But I was exhausted. I took a sleeping pill and went to bed early, frustrated that I didn’t feel up to expressing what was happening. I spoke to my sister Janice on the phone and then called Grandma for a quick goodnight.
Around then my sleeping pill kicked in and everything is a blur, but I appear to have eaten a bit, which annoys me. I don’t remember what happened and that always bugs me, but I did sleep very well. When I woke up around 5am I came out to the office and wrote a poem about Sean and the new Tori album. This is the first poem that I’ve written since creating the website and having a place for it to go without posting it on Facebook, which feels good. I might share this with Sean’s mother. She’s always been very supportive of me.
One of the things that Janice and I discussed last night was death. Death and our mother. Dreams we have of her. When Janice dreams about her she knows in the dreams that mom is gone, but in my dreams I don’t usually know. She’s also usually not the focus of whatever dreams she appears in. Janice says she also dreams about our grandfather quite often, but I don’t think I do at all. He died a year ago this month.
I listened to more Tori and worked on organizing the photos I’ve used in the collages in the my photos section to help prevent me from reusing the same photos when the whole point is to contrast old and new with everything given a new spin. I should have been doing this all along but I wasn’t sure how I wanted to go about it and I’m still not sure that what I’m doing is the best, but it will do for now.
I went back to bed for some Aaron cuddles but I was feeling restless and left after about 40 minutes. I’m hungry and should eat soon, but I’m not sure what I’m going to have. I’m just hoping for a productive day. And if I can get outside that will be 5 days in a row. It’s very sunny out right now, which is an improvement on yesterday’s overcast sky. It should be about 65, which isn’t bad.
I finally break down as I listen to her designedly drowned in dimes and volkswagens…
I finally get down In (these) Times of Dragons.
I’ve kissed and I’ve thought of the old wrongs renewed…
I’ve listened a lot to the old songs he knew…
We SPARK to prolong what will never appear…
It’s dark to hear songs that he won’t ever hear.
Written by Jason Wright May 7, 2026
For Sean – who would have loved the new Tori Amos album.
* * * * *
I listened to the new songs 6 days after the release of “In Times of Dragons” and I thought I was fine, but then I thought of Sean never getting to hear this and I wept in the shower. Aaron noticed I was sad but I was tired and unable to talk about it. I’ll explain it later. If I could give Sean this album I would. But I can’t, and that hurts. – Jason
I spend a lot of time thinking about death. I’m fine. Really. But, if one is lucky enough to age, invariably, people you know will die. Sometimes it is expected. Sometimes it is surprising. But stuff comes up. Like, how I’m now older than people that I used to know, who were my elders. Omni. Kelli Parker. Aunt Shawn. Johnny Vaughn. Just a few. And boyfriends. I’ve now outlived 4 boyfriends. And many others that I flirted with and had wanted to date. And then there are the many, many celebrities, who I never met. Brandon Lee. Freddie Mercury. Judy Garland. Kurt Cobain. Michael Jackson. River Phoenix. Scott Weiland. Steve Mcqueen. Tupac Shakur. Whitney Houston. I could go on; probably for hours.
As I posted the other day, I found out on Friday, that my old friend Brian had died the week before. I met him on March 19, 1992, which was a very memorable morning for me. That same morning I also met a whole host of other interesting people, including Rachel Lynn Burleson Eanes. I could never remember her last name but in an odd conversation at the time, it came up that we both had the middle name Lynn and that we had the same birthday – only she was exactly 2 years younger than me, less than a month younger than Brian. This morning I realized I might use her middle name and birthdate to help me find her. Only she died on September 29, 2004. Fuck.
I used to keep a blog. And I wondered if there might be an entry for that day which could clue me into what I’d been up to, only to see that on September 29, 2004, I was attending the funeral of my friend Kevin Clark. I had only met him a year or two before but he’d been struggling with kidney issues for a very long time. He died on September 25, 2004. Here’s what I wrote the day of his funeral:
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
I didn’t get much sleep last night, getting ready for Kevin’s funeral. The car ride was horrible, and my head still aches; but I just woke up from a dream in which Kevin survived, and the world was as it should be.
He was still in a hospital, but there were no terrifying machines to keep him alive, and Kevin’s Grandfather was there, playing with a baby, at the foot of the bed. Laurie, Mark & Mollie went out to take in the incredible view of the mountains, and Kevin said I looked sleepy. Kevin looked relaxed, healthy, but concerned about me. He pulled back the sheets and invited me to lay down in his enormous, comfortable looking bed, and I cuddled in and he laughed.
It was like one of the hugs we’d given each other in these final weeks, given in a hospital bed, only this one was under the best of circumstances, and made us both smile. Phil was there too; also playing with the baby, and he agreed with Kevin that it was too hot for blankets; saying he almost melted when Mark & I took care of him at our condo last summer & that he’d almost drowned in sweat under all the blankets. Kevin laughed, & I woke up hugging my pillow, hearing Kevin’s laughter, and I thought: We never took care of Phil, did we? It didn’t hit me for a few seconds that Kevin was dead.
The dream was comforting, and it was painful to wake up from; because Kevin isn’t in this world any longer, which made me cry. The first time I’ve cried about Kevin’s death. I was prepared for it, and it seemed like the best thing for Kevin at the end. I didn’t cry at the funeral home, because Kevin wasn’t there; his body lay in the coffin, but I couldn’t believe it was him; Kevin never sat that still. And I’d told several jokes to make my friends smile while we were there, and the thing pretending to be Kevin just lay there, which was the real tip off; Kevin always laughed at my jokes; never misinterpreting them as anything more than my own way of dealing.
I only saw Kevin in person, something like 8 times; and the last few of those visits was in a hospital room within walking distance of my condo. I always made sure to hug him, and be direct, and try to make him smile.
Monday May 20th, 2004, the last time I saw him, Mark & I told him we would bring him anything he needed; a laptop so he could write or check his email; a video camera if he wanted to record a message; or we could fly anyone in that he wanted to see a final time. We all knew that his chances for survival were slim, and I wanted to be clear about how cool I thought he was, and if there was anything he wanted in those final days, I wanted him to know that we could provide them. He said no to all of that; he said he was tired, and that he would soon be dead, or he would be better, and he would welcome both at this point. He told us to tell all his friends that he loved them. And then I hugged him goodbye, and I kissed him; the whole time worried that I was going to accidentally rip out some tube or device that was strapped on or into him; which again made him laugh in my ear when I whispered my concern, before he hugged me again even harder.
I hugged his Father goodbye too; amazed yet again by his family’s strength & support. People say that Kevin was a fighter, and he was. I’ve known so many others who were so opposite of him and I believe it has something to do with Kevin’s family and friends. His family was so loving & so supportive & so THERE, that Kevin was gifted with a home in which he could grow to be such an amazing person; and we all reaped the rewards of that love. Every time I’ve hugged his family since I’ve met them; every time I’ve looked at them, I’ve silently thanked them for the environment they provided, which produced such a loving friend.
The end, right? Only it wasn’t. Kevin e-mailed me the next day. I don’t know how he got to a computer; or why he changed his mind. I had written him some email in the past; 3 or 4 messages to find out how he was but he had never responded; he finally did, and this is what he wrote:
this you jayson?? i just a have a shprt time, checking adressess tanks for all youre help
love kkevin
I got to tell Kevin how I felt about him, & let him know how much I cared, and that I would do anything I could for him. I got to hug him goodbye, and he hugged me too, his grip was so strong though his body was so frail. I guess I haven’t been feeling sad so much as lucky, that I knew him at all, and that when his time came, we had those moments, and this goodbye, and the circle was complete.
And now I have this dream in my head of Kevin, happy & healthy, and making all his friends smile, and I choose to feel lucky for that as well.
The person who gave me directions to Kevin’s funeral, was Jason Lyons. I met him through the same circle of friends who had introduced me to Kevin. We hung out twice on our own, but never for long. I can’t remember if I ever asked him out, but I had wanted to – I do remember the timing was never right. When I met him, I knew he was kind and that he had great friends. But when I actually spoke to him, which took a long time because he was often very quiet around me, I knew he was something very special. We chatted online for hours. We spoke at a bar when we ran into each other there; he was on his own that time, and it was nice just being with him. We had very different tastes in music. lol But nobody’s perfect. Jason died on December 4, 2017. He was another one I found out about after the fact. Partially because while we had friends in common, I don’t think anyone realized we ever spoke. And partially just because I was pretty distant from everyone we did have in common. Geographically, at least.
Anyways, my mind searches for patterns, even when there aren’t any. But having lost Brian, I searched for Rachel. But Rachel died the day I was at Kevin’s funeral, by way of directions from Jason. And of the five of us I alone live to tell the tale. And that’s really fucking surreal.
There was a morning, a day, a hot afternoon where I thought my life would change… where my wandering had finally altered my direction… but it wasn’t meant to be. Perhaps every day is like this for others… but the day I am thinking of, the day of sex before the sermon, I believed that I’d finally arrived somewhere I was meant to be, only to learn across the years that I would seldom ever return, and I wish I would have known how special that time was, how precious those moments.
It’s altogether different yet somehow the same when watching you watching whales… when the music you share nearly kills me with it’s mournful beauty – giving me fever chills and death spasms before my fever breaks and I’m allowed to dance in the trance of our shoegazing dream pop.
In the fever all that could comfort me was the seemingly old but younger woman with the ghost on the porch… An echo of that first reading joining my pain across two different eras.
3
The first would have been discovery, and on the very brink of puberty as I stumbled through that sea of trees to find a validating fiction.
And now the feeling: brotherly, yet still cherry stink of nudity as I’m humbled by our deities to bind an animated friction.
And the proof it is not fair but the truth is he’s out there begging for money, trading sex for drugs hungry while the whales circle round us tasting sweetly table scraps.
And the lie if there is one is that life is a shotgun because life hasn’t drowned us baby please don’t go like that.
When you walked in to Starbs with my man on your arm in your charmingly gay jeans, I smiled and I thought that this could be fun.
I ran into an old customer who told me about his son’s tumbling class as I watched you both ordering coffee, with an easy, relaxed manner, that spoke volumes of what was to come.
Your sing song ramblings were the essence of adorable and you seemed younger than your pictures, while also managing to look completely different from whatever angle I spied you from.
We agreed on Buffy’s Gift and disagreed on LGBT actors, though not in the typical, angry, grating way, which Aaron and I had just discussed in relation to a similar friend, who has already secretly been mentioned here.
We had matching board games which we managed to win before I took pain killer when I expected no more games to be played.
This, aside from the tongue fuck of a kiss which was seemingly dared and then shared without mercy.
Later, that other kiss on the kitchen counter, and you were the ghost of Sean Mobley, whispering across my skin before we all retired to the place I expected us not to go… which in all fairness, I had insisted on.
There were obstacles to overcome but in a relaxingly hazy, lustful way, or that’s how I experienced it at the time.
Your sexy ass, which I yearned to devour, was sadly out of service… and my painkiller infused erection was quickly down for the count, yet your beautifully thick dick and mouthwatering sack were open for business.
I did fucking love your sex drenched cock, stretching me open after riding your face like you were some kind of bucking bronco.
You were energetic, switching positions, still looking different from every angle, painfully / pleasurably thrusting deep inside me, filling the rubber with an impressive load of cum.
You left soon after, since you don’t like to cuddle, and the two of you needed to be up early the next morning.
You took Ian McKellen (as James Whale) with you and we traded messages on this or that service but I don’t hear your voice in those words.
In these random exchanges it’s hard to tell what is real; hard to tell if we’re going to see you again.
Perhaps you really were just a shadow of Sean, come to sing me carols and wake me with a kiss.
But I’d like to talk to you again: face to face.
It’s not all about your dick; it’s everything else too; all those angles are views I’d like to explore.
My sentences sent to convey this seem awkward and desperate, but that’s not how they’re meant.
Like I said, it’s hard to tell what is real in the light of day; hard to decipher if what we experienced was the beginning of friendship or merely the end of a short, yet satisfying game.
The best actor tonight reminded me of you; I thought to speak this but then remembered your cruel insanity and the way you cut me before cowardly running away to your drugs; your marriage of lies and pain, denial and hope, sadness and despair.
I wanted to invite you to our party, the way I always reach out and invite you, but having removed yourself from my life I can’t extend the invitation which you confusingly attested had never been offered in the past… even though I always welcomed you and sought to join our worlds together.
You called me the night that your father died in October 2011, and when I inquired, you said he’d have been happy to have me there, but then there were no words or information given.
I invited you camping for a night in 2016 and you agreed but then your future fiance blackmailed you into staying behind.
You asked me to take photographs of a famed NYC locale which I spent a day reaching to amuse you, only to share them with no response whatsoever.
I invited, again & again, and you cancelled, made excuses, ignored or hid for no reason I’ve been informed of.
Every time I reached out, you were grateful, but refused to touch.
Until the night came of The Body Politic when you accused, expelling your poison laced accusations with no possibility for my response, despite years shared in conversation, dedication and nearly 16 years after the most perfect kiss that I’ll have ever given.
That night I chose not to follow you. Not again. I will not chase you simply because you’ve chosen to run. I will not struggle through your shit just because you feel like being an asshole.
If you reach out to me I will be there, but I don’t have the strength to force you to see reason or remember how I have championed you.
If I’m lucky I’ll hear from you again someday but I suspect I will only hear of your untimely end.
You were out of your mind on junk the entire time I knew you but I just couldn’t see it.
I see it now and no matter how much I try I can’t stop loving you.
The only difference is I love myself now too and I deserve better than to suffer for the choices that you’ve made.
