GUN: I'm getting a Christmas tree this year for the first time...I wish you the very best this Christmas...I think of you often..

HEART: All the time. Everywhere.

Maybe once or twice a day since the last time you cut me, my head would remember something you said to me and it might make my eyes bleed. A song I'd hear or a call from you makes it hard to breathe and I can't swallow. Many say once a day for seventeen months is too often. But others have cut me before you and made me bleed more than once a day. On purpose. All the time.

I saw Damien Rice and his band perform at the Paramount in Oakland last night.

Last night, without being announced, without saying anything to nor looking at the audience, Damien Rice walks to his piano and starts to slice me open from the top of my throat to my chest. In much the same way the memory of you affects me, so did every line of each song in Wednesday night's performance. How lame to be thinking of someone who cut you while going out to see a concert but why should Oakland's Paramount Theatre be different than all the other places where I think of you? Everywhere.

My chest grit its teeth as Damien Rice yanked from it the blisterd, smoke-stained heart. Like a palm reader, he ran his musical fingers along the tattered veins on the bruised heart and sang to me, to everyone, about the past ten years of my life with you. Lyrics that needed to be screamed or yelled was something you told me that I wanted to forget. Everything Damien whispered were like things we said to each other that I wanted to remember. I dressed nice; slacks, a tie. The outside of me looked okay but inside I was a mess. I couldn't breathe, swallow nor even, thankfully, cry. I just sat there as I sweat all of me out my palms.

That was the first two songs.

Damien Rice the heart reader picked up an acoustic guitar and was joined on stage by a cellist, drummer, bass player and an angel. The lyrics in the third song: Stuff I almost say when you tell me you love me but you're not In Love With Me. Word for f&c#!ng word, goddammit, like he was in my head when you want us to be Monica and Rachel Friends. He screamed Let Me Out Let Me Out!

I soon lost track of songs and time but not memories. From the end of us to the first time you told me you considered yourself single to the good times - movies we danced to, midnight paddle ball, anytime or anything we were doing when you held my hand - to when you were visiting me after work before you went home. As Damien Rice dropped me off at the place and time to where you both told me not to get my hopes up, I realized it was nine years ago this week you agreed to have our first dinner together with me.

Last month, I never knew who Damien Rice was nor anyone in his band. Except for one song, I'd not read, heard or seen anything they have ever done. Except for "9", I was hearing every song they played Wednesday night for the first time forever.

I started to tell you about the song "9" from "9 Crimes" I heard on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. This song, to me, is about now. Damien Rice and the angel, as usual, weren't telling me anything I didn't already know. The angel said its the wrong place to be thinking of you. Damien said its the wrong time to be thinking of you.

Everywhere. All the time.

When "9" was finished, half the people around me were crying. The other half? They are, as of that moment, finished.

Thank you, Damien Rice. Happy birthday.