I’ve arrived at a conclusion after years of self adulation and deprecation; growing up is addressing and overcoming the trauma from your past. Until then you’re just a kid with extra responsibilities. Cherry was the discovery of and exploration of that realization, and I tried my best to organize it not in the order that the events happened but by the progress of the emotional growth.

Jersey was the infancy of it all. I had in my hand the heart of a really sweet girl and I wasn’t ready to give her mine fully cause it belonged to someone else. I had spread myself too thin. I had thrown her into the wash cycle of never quite cleaned laundry and spun us around. But I’d done it for the last time. When she told me she wasn’t going to hang around and get hurt I didn’t try to stop her from leaving even though I wanted her around, I knew in my heart it wasn’t fair to either of us. But she’ll always have a piece of me. And here it is.