Private Joy.

Chp 30.

"God damn your poetry is beautiful, you're really gonna make me cry one of these days !" Jasymn exclaimed somewhat jokingly. It was New Years Eve and my mother practically begged me to go out and enjoy myself for once. I hesitantly agreed but I made sure she had a carer with her first.

She was much too sick these days to be all by herself.

Besides, I was only just down the street at the local cafe having a cup of coffee with Jasmyn. We hadn't seen each other in awhile and we were already discussing our future plans for the new year so I decided to show her some of the poetry that I had been working on lately.

She loved it and her compliments were flattering enough to just make me nod along with appreciation. I used to believe the good things people said about my poetry.

Not anymore. All I could see now were words on paper. As soon as I wrote them down, they no longer had meaning. At least not to me. The emotional tie would be cut every time as I refused to come face to face with how I really felt. But it seemed that the emotions were still able to be felt deeply by others. For example, Jasmyn.

"You know you should really do with something with your work some day..I guarantee you it would get you somewhere, you paint such a detailed picture..and yet with so little words" She mused.

"Yeah well..someone once wanted to do collaboration with me but it didn't work out.." I mentioned briefly, sipping my coffee. "Y'know Prince isn't the only person in the world you can do a poetry album with" She replied honestly.

Crap, I forgot that I already told her that story.

"I know" I sighed.

But he was the only person in the world that I wanted to do it with.

"So maybe when I'm famous I could set you up with some hella good-looking guys" Jasmyn winked, quickly changing the subject. The mention of his name would always cause me to drown in the oblivion of my thoughts. But I decided not to go down that route for now.

"Yeah, that would be something" I grinned, trying to be positive.

"You got any plans for tonight ?" I asked, generally interested. "There's going to be a big party in town, I'm thinking of going with some friends, you ?" She chatted. "Probably just going to watch the ball drop in Times Square on tv with mom" I responded quietly.

"How's she doing ?" She inquired with a look of understanding sympathy.

"She's hanging in there..she's been throwing up a lot in the last couple of days but it's nothing I can't handle..I'm just trying to keep her positive without trying to seem too obvious that I'm trying to..you know" I shrugged nonchalantly, hiding my upset for her worsening condition.

"Well you're welcome to stay at my place when..ya know" She uttered delicately but knowingly.

"Thanks" I whispered, holding back tears.

I knew that mom wasn't going to be around much longer but I decided that I wasn't going to depress myself until that day came. It was hard enough to think about it. Sometimes I contemplated whether or not I should contact Prince to inform him of her nearing death.

Sometimes I wondered if he still cared. They were awfully close. It didn't seem like something you could fake but it would probably open a can of worms to let him know.

I couldn't help but sigh. He was the only other person she was close to within recent months and considering she asked about him nearly everyday, it broke my heart to know that they would never get to say goodbye to one another.