Before I start,
I want to warn you that I'm not very good at dealing with this kind of thing.
It's been a while since I've thought about you this much.
I tried talking about you the other day,
it didn't really work out so well, I mean
I haven't talked to you in seven years
and even then I never really knew how to explain you.
With your middle name being Patrick,
I celebrated you like you were a Saint
and the entirety of my days were March 17th.
You were all wind chimes and four leaf clovers,
brand new horseshoes and rabbits feet.
I never told anyone what you meant to me
because I never had to.

I knew that things at home were getting bad for you
and you told me you didn't want to talk about it.
But you should have told me when you stopped sleeping,
because I could see the bags under your eyes
like they were carrying your burdens
instead of your shoulders
instead of me.

I started wondering why your boyfriend stopped hanging out with us
but I knew it was because your parents
were giving you black and blue islands as welcoming gifts
and to be frank, I never liked vacationing
so I didn't want to dive into their oceans.
But you cried so often that I could have.

You said
"If I'm gay, why can't I feel like the rainbows
instead of having to explain them?"
I tried to tell you that not everyone knows what to do with a *** of gold when they find it.
So when your parents kept having to take you to the hospital,
that was the only way they knew how to spend the fortune they found.
They spent those gold bricks
buying you therapists who validated your feelings
but pacified your parents by telling them you were "getting better."

But one morning before school,
the phone rang like church tolls.
And my stomach dropped through the floor
and went six feet past the dirt
like it was digging your grave for you
before we even had a service.

On the other end of the line
a woman's voice was broke in half
trembling out the words
"we found him this morning"
like they were her hands reaching for the rope all over again.

Leo, you know how you said you wouldn't break me?
Well my twelve year old heart,
it had broke.
It spilled on the floor like the metal pieces
in the game of jacks
and the ball kept bouncing
but my hands were too clumsy to know how to pick all of myself back up at once.
All of the nerves in my body were malfunctioning
and I swear to God I think I apologized for breathing
because I felt like I was stealing it from you.
The air was all fire and ice,
dancing in my lungs like Armageddon;
the final battle between my breath and yours
and it seems like you lost
but I never won.

It's been seven years since your death
and I still don't feel properly equipped to deal with it yet.
I still haven't finished the letter you addressed to me
and if i'm being honest I can't even get halfway through without crying
or wishing it was me.
But you started it off with
"I am so sorry for breaking you"
and I never made it to the funeral
because I never told my parents you were dead
I just thought it'd be easier to deal with this alone.
But it's been seven years
and I am alone
and I still don't know how to deal with it yet
because you were my *** of gold
and not everyone knows what to do with one when they find it.