TENDER IS THE NIGHT SET AFIRE

There is something to be said about taking a shit late at night w/ the lights extinguished, surrounded by nothing but silence. A silky curtain drapes about you. The air seems to kiss itself into a Sunday nap. The body slips into a hot-spring, naked. A shot of Whisky. A line of Coke. A line of Poetry completed.
At such times, i think of a sooth-sayer for the past.
i am remembering the first time i had ever heard Jeff Buckley.
It was in an apt. building justly dubbed, The Roach Motel. As per usual back then, my friend & i were stoned to paralysis, lying on his floor in the dark for what could have been days, or even just moments, picture-painting aloud the ceiling w/ our thoughts & visions, roaches calmly climbing over us; to them, we weren't even there.
Beside myself w/ waves of intensifying thought, i struggled to rise myself.
"Hang-on," he said. "Stay there. I've something for you."
It would be this very night that would spawn so much of everything that was to transpire for years to come. An awakening. A nightmare. It would be the very thing that made me who i am today, for better or for worse. i wouldn't have this realization for at least another decade.
In the dark of E.H's apt., flat upon my back, i couldn't focus, couldn't think clearly, & at that moment, it seemed that was the most clear thing i could be thinking or feeling.
Far off, i could mutely hear E.H. rummaging around, softly cursing for taking so long to find whatever it was he was trying to find.
Finally, w/ a voice made of tender glass, "listen." He said.
As Buckley's voice exited the speakers, & slid into my ears, my breathing slowed. My heart quickened. The air thickened w/ each note he sang. The walls began to breath w/ life. The snow quilting the valley outside became a symphony of melancholy, & suddenly the night was set afire by the spark of the change of two boys.
What that change was, even now, i cannot define. Cannot place a word to it, but can only feel that night living in the marrow of my bones.
As i flush, that night that was so tender, so long ago, turns to a tinder of something like a dream.