When I was four...
I lost my great grandmother.
Didn't know her well,
But it didn't take much to see she was a sweet, kind soul.
I stood in the rain and wind at her funeral,
Clinging to my mothers arms,
Staring at the coffin blankly, because I didn't know what else to do.

When I was eight...
I lost my best friend.
His hair was as fiery as mine,
We played at recess every day.
One day he stopped coming to school,
You only knew where he was if you asked,
That's how his parents wanted it.
He came back, once.
Balding, attached to an IV,
Just to watch us play one more time.
Then he was gone.
I still didn't know what to do.
The school put up a plaque in his name,
And planted him a tree to live on for him.

When I was eleven,
I lost someone who was like a second father to me.
He loved me and my mother,
And we loved him.
I never got to tell him that....
He was an alcoholic.
And, it ******* his heart.
My mom woke up to a dead man,
Took him to the hospital.
That night, she watched him being kept alive by machines,
And was told he had no chance of waking up.
She watched his family and friends make the decision to pull the plug.
I didn't know until later, I was with my biological father.
I didn't see my mom for a week.
I didn't eat or drink that whole time.
I was empty.
I didn't cry until they played his favorite song at the funeral,
A familiar one to me.
I sobbed quietly into my mother's lap,
Trying not to disturb the others.

That night,
I prayed for the first time,
Just to try and talk to him.

When I was fifteen,
A mere four months ago.
Nearly five.
I lost another friend,
Who I wish I knew better.
He battled cancer for a year.
We didn't see him for months on end,
Because he couldn't come to school.
And a month or so after he finally started getting better,
Coming back to school,
He got sick....
And his body couldn't handle it.
At first, I was more worried about making sure my other friends were okay,
And then it hit me.
I stayed with them in the counselor's office for the last half of the school day,
Crying,
Writing to him that I was sorry.
I cried the next day at his memorial,
And then at his funeral.
It still hits me sometimes,
Like waking up from a dream,
To find that life is a nightmare.
And I break all over again.

Just before that,
Another friend of mine,
Told me they only had two years left...
There were problems with a vital ***** of theirs,
And they were worsening.
I've had to secretly bear this,
No one else can know.
I'm waiting for that day to come.

A few days ago,
My current best friend,
My family,
Said they may only have a year left.
Internal wounds that wont heal,
Blood loss,
That's all I can think.
If the doctors can't fix this...
Who can?

Slowly,
I've been losing pieces of myself,
Giving it to them,
Horcruxes, if you will,
And when they leave this world behind,
So does that part of me...
Each person that dies hurts worse than the last,
Because it's just adding onto the pile of pain,
That I can't get over.
I hardly have the strength to hold on to who I am anymore...

*Why can't I be next in line instead?