I met a man through recovery that I never thought I’d get to meet.
He was a songwriter from London,
a master carpenter who had built me a home when I was 13
and my heart got bit by the rabid loss
of Courtney choosing Ryan over me
despite me singing to her every word of K-Ci and JoJo at Christa’s party
while Ryan was in the living room crop-dusting the couches
with enough Axe Body Spray to sedate a moose.

Whatever. I’m over it. I’ve done the work. Obviously.

If you had asked me at rehab to name 5 people I’d love to meet someday,
this British boy wonder would’ve made the list
somewhere between God, Johnny Rzeznick, Dylan—duh,
and whatever Einstein impersonator
is responsible for peanut butter M&M’s.

Of all the artists who have ever handed me a flashlight in the dark,
my guy was near the top.
And yet here we both were at the bottom.
Alive enough to be embarrassed.
Broken enough to tell the truth.

I tried to play it cool,
like I’ve unsuccessfully been trying my whole life to do
(I told y’all about singing “All My Life” to Courtney at a party right?)
I tried to restrain the gush, but I’m just a man,
and my gratitude has never understood portion control.

It eventually kicked down the door
and I turned that little rehab room into a church
with the energy of my awe on fanboy high.

I poured all of my worship into the beige carpet between our plastic chairs,
with the liturgy being just me naming his accomplishments
like a possessed Wikipedia page.

I started talking about his Grammys, his VMA moon men,
the number-one hits that transcended the limitations of a chart
and made it all the way into the zit-lit terror of being young and unwanted.

That man came to rehab to get clean,
and so I showered him in the gold-leaf of his own achievements.

He was kind about it too.
He did the obligatory but generous artist thing
where they open the backstage door a crack
and tell you how the song happened:
how the chorus came while boiling water,
how the bridge appeared in the kitchen like a stray cat with wings.

But then he got quiet,
like the volume of an empty cathedral after everyone goes home
and God starts stacking the chairs.

He looked down at his chipped human fingernails
and out at the window outside and said,

“You know it's funny you mention the awards, because I was thinking about them this morning. I was thinking about how none of them kept me from ending up here. Each of them lied and said they would, but here we are. Which is why last week, I grabbed them from the upstairs of my home, stuffed them into a black Glad trash bag, and dragged them out to the curb with the coffee grounds and the rotting food and everything else that could no longer pretend to be useful.”

He said they didn’t mean a damn thing when the lights went down.
He said a trophy cannot hold your hand when the room starts shaking.

And then he said,
“At the end of the day, I just want someone to walk with.”

That was years ago, and I still often think about
how every height is shorter than we had hoped.
How the peak you’ve been trying to climb is a poor climate to build a home.
Too thin and bright and lonely.
Nothing good grows there except flags and frostbite.

All the applause always dies down,
the guests always go home, the flowers brown at the edges,
and it’s just you all alone standing in the quiet debris of your own achievements with sore arms, realizing that a milestone is just a heavy stone unless there is someone to help you carry it.

And so while I have no awards to throw away,
my ask of the earth is the same: Just give me someone to walk with.

Give me someone who can sit beside me
and the unpaid bills and the dishwasher hum.
Someone to watch me burn the toast
and see the way my jaw tightens when I talk about Grandma Jo.
Someone to notice the precise second the pilot light goes out in my eyes
and be the first to strike the match.

Just give me someone like this, and for you,
let me be someone like that.

Let me be the town square statue for your uncelebrated survivals.

Let me sit in the passenger seat
while you scream-sing to the radio so loud
that every ghost in the backseat has to unbuckle and walk.
Let me learn the raised alphabet of your hurts,
the braille pain leaves on the body
so I can read you through the room.

I want to watch your hair turn into the North Shore in February
with silver at the temples and snow on the crown,
proof that the winters came for you and still your life is warm.

Because when the world confesses that it’s been selling us cardboard crowns
and the music comes to a stop,
all the myths we’ve built to feel more finished and less afraid
will fold in on themselves like ribbed lawn chairs with rust in their knees.

And when that happens,
I don't want to be left reaching for a shelf full of trophies dumb and polished
that have never reached for me back.

I want you.
I want to look to my left,
press my thumb into the soft pulse of your wrist,
and know that we are both here,
stubborn and bleeding and walking each other home.







• Ayous wood .75″ (1.9 cm) thick frame from renewable forests
• Paper thickness: 10.3 mil (0.26 mm)
• Paper weight: 189 g/m²
• Lightweight
• Acrylite front protector
• Hanging hardware included
• Blank product components in the US sourced from Japan and the US
• Blank product components in the EU sourced from Japan and Latvia

How to attach hooks on 24″ × 36″ horizontal frames:
Place each of the mounting hooks 1 inch (2.5 cm) from frame corners when hanging horizontally.

This product is made especially for you as soon as you place an order, which is why it takes us a bit longer to deliver it to you. Making products on demand instead of in bulk helps reduce overproduction, so thank you for making thoughtful purchasing decisions!