Yesterday I drove by your grave
The closest to a grave that you have here
The closest now to a home you have
Here in the place you left behind.
I hear the lyrics to that old song
I used to like
About saving a life.
Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend.
Somewhere along in the bitterness,
And I would’ve stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life.
They disconnected your phone number
On the day that you were born
One week after you died
My texts don’t deliver anymore,
And I don’t know how I can reach you again.
Deaf to all other sound,
I only hear my sobs ricochet
From wall to wall
In the living room you used to sit
In the house where you told me everything.
Grief swells in waves, vast as the sea,
I truly wish
I could say I healed,
But how dare I,
Without some kind
Of effervescence guiding me?
Serendipitous moments,
Are they chance or fate?
You existing was serendipity…
In fact, our friendship was always
Serendipitous enough to me.
There was no need to wield
The reaper of souls to prove one trivial point.
I refuse to believe
Long before you and I met
The stars were already written
That God or Buddha or Allah
Or whoever spirit or being reigns above
Already knew.
Knew that you’d be gone sooner
Than you truly lived.
There is no beautiful metaphor,
Resounding analogy
To turn your death into a lesson
That will help me stand taller.
There are no words
No fucking words at all
No words for how many minutes
I’ve wasted begging the beings above
To just get one single message from you.
One single sign, just so I know you’re okay.
I know you’re not alive anymore.
That much I have to accept is true.
I think about you most of my waking day.
I wonder how Moony is doing,
Or the foster kitten you tried to get me to adopt.
Is someone taking good care of your motorcycle?
Your name is a mainstay in my brain.
If consciences are linked,
Does that mean you’re thinking about me too?
I am not built for this capacity of emotion.
What breaks me the absolute most
Is that I’m trying so hard, Verona.
I am trying so hard to fulfill your legacy.
I am trying so hard to find life after you.
I am trying so hard to carry forth your light,
To let the fire you lit under me
Carry me to the heights you were meant to reach.
I am but one small, broken soul
Searching for my own light
I am not equipped to honor your life.
I am not worthy.
I can live through everything my mind puts me through
I can live through weeks of no sleep,
Psychotic mania, the Tartarus of my depression
Rib-shattering anxiety, blood ribbons running
Down the sides of my body.
But this,
I can’t even try to fix this kind of heartbreak.
I would sell my heart just so I could say goodbye to you.
I’d let you haunt the deepest cracks of my shame,
Be the hallucination that drives me mad,
You could gouge the darkest scabs of my guilt
Ghost, spirit, entity, paranormal alien,
You could be anything but
I’d just want to see you again
Be in the same space as you again
Tell you how much you meant to me
If only you could stand in front of me
Once again.
My birthday this year
Will be one month
After you died.
I have always hated my birthday.
This year will be five years
Since I tried to kill myself on my birthday.
And again, my birthday
Commemorates death.
I fucking hate that.
But I know,
The reason why this is so hard,
Is because you, my love,
You are not replaceable.
There is nothing in my life
Nothing at all
That could possibly take your place.
How could they?
You, my ever fearless,
Ever faithful, ever loving,
Ever willing, ever so kind,
Friend.
I will spend the rest of my life
Looking for someone like you,
You are my ivory tower,
The greenest of the green goddesses.
You are my cat whisperer,
The one that got away
Just a little too soon.
I guess this is one of the last ways I can talk to you
Sending this haphazard poem
Out into the stars where you now reside.
I wonder how long snail mail takes
When one is travelling in light-years.
My dearest Verona,
I don’t know if it gets better, girl.
I don’t know if this emptiness I feel
Every time your name crosses my mind
Will ever dissipate.
I suppose schizophrenia never does either,
But I just learned to manage the symptoms.
How wretched this existence truly is
To rip away those you love the most
And laugh while you struggle to stand.
I finally went to the gym last week,
The first time since you died.
I told them…you probably wouldn’t be coming back,
And I climbed by myself
For the first time in two years.
I suppose learning to live with loss,
It’s like learning to love again.
I don’t want our birthdays,
Which fall on the first month of every new year,
To continue to haunt me.
Right now, I can’t quite help it,
But I want our birthdays and my life moving forward,
I want them to be one long love letter
To your existence, to mine, to every single person
Our lights have touched.
It seems you and I,
We are ill-fated to meet again in this life.
But don’t worry, love.
You may have to wait awhile for me to join you,
But the many, many, many
Cascades of my consciousness,
I promise you will keep us awake
For many, many, many
Nights thereafter,
And many, many, many
Of our birthdays thereafter,
In our next lives to come.
Ellamental Thoughts 