She is dead.
It’s fate’s fault.
But only sixteen.
That’s too young
To leave us.

He found it.
Her dead body,
Under the dock.
She’d been missing
For 45 minutes.

She was dead
Before anyone knew.
He never forgot
Finding her there,
Already far gone.

The ambulance came,
But too late.
No hope left
That she might
Still be okay.

It tore him.
Tore him apart.
You could see
The hurt inside
His circled eyes.

It started small
Just a sore,
On his cheek.
But it grew.
And it spread.

From one came
Another and another
Painful sores on
His deformed face,
Eating him away.

Then he left,
To find help.
Because it hurt
Far too much.
Even inside him..

He was gone
A long time.
We were hoping
He found whatever
Help he needed.

We finally heard.
A letter came.
But from him?
We didn’t know.
We couldn’t tell.

Scrawled in marker,
Were two words.
Our hearts stopped.
There it said
Only: “HELP
           JUDE”

He needs help?
Or found it?
We didn’t know.
Then we saw
Something more chilling.

A photograph slipped
From the envelope.
It was him.
But was it?
Didn’t look right.

His face, gone.
Rotted by sores.
Eaten all  away.
Hollow. Empty. Gone.
Then we knew.

In silent shame
Our eyes closed.
Because we knew
We should have
Helped him first.

We were the
Help he needed
Before he needed
Anything at all.
“We didn’t know.”

A bad excuse
Because we knew.
We always knew.

You always know.

Bedraggled. Empty. Worn and cast down.
Or cast out.
Never knowing
If the steps you're taking are before or behind you,
Though you furnish yourself with countless devices.

Trying in vain
To gather the scattered pieces
Of the many worlds you've left.
But the trail is ever behind you,
Reminding you.

The mountain range you're riding
Never seems to cease.
So many ups and downs
And just-around-the-corners
That continually come but never get you there.

You just want this to end;
To be done
Or run away.
You say there's no way,
And that nobody knows.
Even if they did, they wouldn't care or understand.

But dear, what you don't know,
Is that we've all been there before,
And everyone,
If they have a brain,
Can tell you

This too will pass.

I've been thinking...
                                wondering...
                                                    ­hoping...
But there is no hope left.
Once, I knew hope,
Like the friend who holds you up
But always falls asleep in the middle of your longest nights.
Those nights with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Yet, there is hope; this is the paradox.
There is hope, but what I need now is not.

Because,
As life works, the right things make themselves known at the wrong times,
And the wrong, destructive things make their way into the most beautiful times.

And now, I should be devoting my time to something worthwhile.
But, I sit, cross-legged on the floor,
My right earphone in my left ear because I need it that way.
I used to hear with both ears, as you do.
Not anymore.

I'm thinking about you.
Wondering and hoping things about you.
I tried to lay down everything for you,
But you didn't know it.
You don't know the sting this leaves in my heart when we talk long into the nights.
Nobody knows the ache I feel when they're all beaming.
I beam too, so that they don't know.
I need it this way.

Maybe I react too easily.
Maybe my heart is too tender.
Maybe, I say, but I know nothing.

Nothing but that this too shall pass.

Above all, there is still
                                       *Hope.