I woke up this morning
shaken from a dream;
you were there,
alive,
and all the pain of the last five years
had never occurred at all;
no funeral,
no messages written on the casket,
no crying myself to sleep
every night.

my first thought of the morning
was,
what was your last thought
as your life drained from your body?-
your existence becoming a statistic,
your future claimed
by the chaos of life and
the noose around your neck.

The medical examiner claimed that
most suicide victims
instinctually
scratch and pry at the noose
in their last moments;

She found your skin beneath
your nails –
and chalked it up to
impulse,
to a natural human response
to danger:
the fight for self preservation –
for life.

I wonder
if you changed your mind
when it was too late;
if the faces of your family
and your friends
flashed in front of you;
if the beauty of life
and the strength of love
at that moment
seemed like
enough
to live for,
but apparently nooses do not ask
“are you sure?”
as they claim your
fourteen year old life.

I wonder if visions
of rainbows
danced in your mind;
sunsets over the ocean;
your wife walking down the aisle
to say "I do";
your baby being born,
his first piercing scream
awakening a part of your heart
you didn't know existed...

I wonder if you realized
you weren't ready yet,
seeing your life's potential
waiting
to be fulfilled
with the fullness of life
and the sheer
imperfect beauty of it all -
but it was
too
late?

I shake my head to clear these morbid thoughts,
far too gruesome for
such a beautiful Sunday morning.
I will continue my day
in your absence,
approaching five years
I have wandered through life
without you at my side.

Like usual,
I will see someone
with sandy hair and
turquoise eyes
in the coffee line,
and I will double check
just to make sure
it is not you.

For some reason,
hearts do not accept
the finality
of death.

then I will wonder
what you would have looked like
at nineteen,
what beautiful roads you might have
found yourself driving down,
windows open,
music up,
and free from the demons
you fatally fought with
five years ago…

how much more beauty
my life would have had,
if you had stayed.

but these are morbid thoughts
for a gorgeous Sunday in June,
so I push you from my mind
and throw the covers back
to begin one more day
without you –
five years have taught me
how to do so,
but haven’t shown me how
to forget you

or how to understand
that your bones
are becoming dust
in a coffin…

that you are now
nothing
but memories.

cant handle this