A Waste...

Some say it was the alcohol; I say it was his cowardice that killed him. Or maybe, it was his of lack resistance to temptation that every great personality is believed to possess until one day, we all find out that they too were different people with the same problems, and they too had found a way to give up and give in without letting anybody know. Maybe that's why he wasn't one of them. Maybe that's why he was just a wasted musical genius. Maybe that's why he was just another man who'd rather be forgotten than remembered with sympathy.

It's hard to forget his last days, his last words, the last notes he played on his guitar and the last song he sang in his course, throaty voice, weaker than I'd ever heard it before.

I'd never known him too well.. and maybe that's why I never knew why it made my heart sink to see him slipping away with not even his lost glory by his side. He always said, "You know you've lived it all when you can laugh at the thought of your own death. Look at me. I'm living through it slowly." His drunkenness was his normal state of mind.... or rather the usual. And the chuckle that followed stabbed my heart. I would never be able to explain the reason why.. to you.. to myself... or anybody else who wondered why.

There was a reason behind every sip that he slowly consumed and enjoyed the taste of on his tongue. Sometimes, it was the regret for backstabbing someone he was the backbone for, for the horrible person he once was, for the many people he had lost and the gratitude for the very few he had managed to keep. Sometimes, it was the dream he had once lived.. That stage, his guitar and the silence of an awestruck audience that was waiting to echo the lyrics of his song. Sometimes, it was her. Someone he'd never been with to actually say he'd lost but the regurgitating memories of whom, plunged his thoughts into a deafening silence that not even drunkenness could force to utter the stammering words of a grieved heart. And the least of all times, it was the thought of going away, of being the sole reason for his wasted existence, the courage he could never call upon to fight his battles, the ones he gave up on before trying.

He didn't care about who cared anymore. Was it because there wasn't anyone who did? Or because he'd stopped giving a damn a long time ago. I saw him sip his life to a close while he strummed its remnants on the strings of his guitar.