My dream weaves another version - you don’t die.
All along it was just a misunderstanding of truth.
There you are, laughing. We all laugh, hysterical.
April fools
in December.

But you did die
and we aren’t laughing
and some days
******* most days
I feel
I will
die
too.

6am silence, the fallen leaves, gold flecks in headlights remind me of Halloween and you’re always loudest in the dark.  
These memories are slipping. I hold them delicate as lace and then hurl myself at reality, hitting for the 50th, 60th, hundredth ******* time.
You are not lost. You’re in the Autumn air, laughing; smoking cigarettes though it never really suited you. ****** at 17, thinking everything was an omen for death.
We did grow old after all. But the clock stopped before the grey, the aches, the hindsight. Before midnight ticking over. Before we finished the conversation.