Touched

​Can’t remember exactly how Burt and I had met.  He’s a poet, too.  I was fairly new to Burlington and I attracted a small group of people, all of whom were complete strangers before I arrived, and now we’re just acquaintances as life had surpassed our time together.  First it was Jared.  We had met outside of the Radio Bean.  He's an amazing photographer and he showed me some of his Instagram photos.  We also exchanged phone numbers.  We got along quite well.  The following night he called me and asked if he could crash at my place.  It was raining and he was camping out on the beach that summer and I said yeah he can spend the night.  I didn’t know him very well so like most nights I stayed up to make sure I didn’t find myself ripped off in the morning.  Not that I had anything worth stealing at the time.  That was when we became good friends.  Next was Mike.  Jared and I were outside talking about how the world would burn one day and Mike chimed in.  He told us that he liked where this conversating was heading.  And then from there, the conversation flowed.  Sometimes I would sit outside of the Bean all by myself and share poetry with strangers and talk about dark, nihilistic subjects and very few people were intrigued.  But Mike and Jared were.  So the three of us hung out most nights.  One night, I think it was Mike, asked us if his coworker could come along on our venture.  Neither Jared nor I cared, so Burt joined us that night.  He was a poet, and he asked me if I could help him put together his book.  I said I would.  The following day I met him at the library and when we were done with our session, we walked around together.  He and I had quite a bit in common.  He was camping out in some graveyard, which I would never do by myself.  I think Chuck was staying in his tent too, although I can’t be sure.  I brought Burt to Monday night Lit Club and he read his poetry and it was damn good.  Very visual.  I remember sitting in the park with him and it started to pour.  Like really pour.  We ducked under a tall tree and stayed completely dry.  Most people were scrambling for real solid cover, but Burt was like: Let’s stand under that tree.  I never thought a tree would provide so much protection from the rain, but it did.  There were lots of other trees there too and no one even thought to commandeer one for themselves.  So Burt and I hung out quite a bit for a whole week straight, probably every day, and we’d just walk all over the place and talk about stuff, some conversations were deep and meaningful and others were shallow and pointless.  Then Burt decided to leave, I think to New Mexico or something.  We continued to talk for a bit after he had left, via Facebook and Facebook Messenger, but eventually the amount we talked started to dwindle and fade away and now we are back to being strangers.  It’s just amazing sometimes, the people you get to know closely in life.  All the people who’ve touched you in some way or another.  All the people you remember and will probably never forget.