February 21, 2026

on february 21, 2006, my friend was murdered.

he was stabbed to death at the gas station we both worked at. 

he died on the floor of the gas station. 

the final blow punctured his heart and he died almost instantly. 

he was only eighteen. 

his name was david. 

i was only twenty and newly twenty at that. i was recently heart broken and recently in a new relationship. i had dyed black hair and was doing my first university degree. i remember feeling like a real adult and now, twenty years later and looking back, i realize i was just a kid and god, i was. 

i found out my friend was murdered at the movie theatre, if you can believe it. 

we were supposed to go see final destination 3, you know, the crappy horror film franchise about death personified?  this one was set at a theme park. we both loved horror films. 

we had made plans to check out this new addition on “cheap tuesday” at the local cinema. a movie for $2. 

neither of us had much for money. 

our plan was to stuff my hello kitty purse full of as much candy as we could get at the dollar store and meet at the theatre and get stoned in my car. 

but, he never showed. 

i remember waiting in the lobby with my friends and my new boyfriend. my friend was never late. even when we worked the 5am ass crack of dawn gas station shift selling coffee to alcoholic bleary eyed truckers, he was always there before me. hungover but cheerful. 

the movie sucked of course and as we left i checked my shitty cellphone and found the voicemail full. i remember my mothers voice telling me with increasing hysteria to phone her. there was a call from a journalist who had once done a story about me and my writing and who got his coffee every morning at the gas station. he called me the “gas station poet” asking for a “statement”. 

my mother told me someone died at the gas station. and i found out it was my friend. he was dead before the movie even started. 

and something inside me just broke open that night and i was never the same. i lost my innocence on the concrete steps of the movie theatre. 

it was over a girl. the newspaper called it “a love triangle gone wrong”.  the guy who killed him was also someone i knew. he was arrested because he turned himself in. there was a murder trial. i had to give statements to the cops. 

and no support existed for all of us at that time. 

give a statement to the cops and then go back and sell lottery tickets to brain dead gambling addicts like nothing happened. 

there was no counselling or therapy. not for a bunch of stoned kids twenty years ago who lost a friend in the worst way possible. 

the only person who gave a shit about us was this weird hippie lady who floated into the gas station every morning, smelling like patchouli and weed, to get coffee. she took all the stoner kids from the gas station to her home and did reiki healing on us and some weird foot bath healing ceremony. i cried into her tie dyed blouse and we talked about old souls and good vibes.  she wore a lot of crystal jewelry. 

i started drinking heavily after my friend was murdered. i partied and got high and ended up lost. i became disconnected from other people my age. i didnt have the words to describe how i felt and i didnt have anyone who would have listened even if i had. 

it took me years to fully be able to understand what had happened. 

and now, twenty years later, i look back and i just miss him. i miss the hungover gas station mornings with him, endless late night chats and getting stoned in the car wash. i remember hammerfall cranked to deafening levels while we shotgunned energy drinks and were young and stupid and wild. 

i wonder what he would be like now, twenty years later. would he dance pow wow?  would he be a father?  would he be teaching a kid to ride a bike?  would we still be friends? 

i can’t believe it’s been twenty years. 

i can still feel those concrete steps. 

i can still smell the acrid scent of black hair dye. 

i can still hear the closing statements in that court room. 

i can still hear him telling me “see you tomorrow”

when i look in the mirror, i still see that stupid kid who studied art and had to grow up way too fast.  other kids my age chased dreams and i spent my youth running from memories of checkerboard gas station floors covered in blood.  i never got to say goodbye, never got to tell him how much he meant to me or how much i looked forward to our shifts together and how he made that shitty job at that shitty fucking gas station just a little bit easier just by being there. 

the journalist who called me gas station poet wrote about me at my friends funeral and how my emotions overflowed when i spoke. 

my boyfriend spit in that journalists face you know. he deserved it. 

i wonder if that hippie lady is still out there doing healing ceremonies in her house. i still think about her sometimes, you know. i wonder if she knows how grateful i am for her. 

i wonder if they play power metal in heaven 

one day, i hope to find out

and i hope there’s a skinny little native boy waiting for all of us, with a can of monster in his hand and a set of keys in the other.