Maybe the hardest part is not knowing what happens after; when the routines have to get back to normal. Or what once was normal. And walking around wondering how you're going to keep walking with this huge chunk of your life gone because even though there is less, it weighs on you like a ball and chain around your ankles and and anvil on your shoulders. Where there was once a warmth is now cold air so you're reaching out for a guide but your guide has long since left.

Like picking up the phone
being greeted by a dial tone
the reciever hanging over the edge
eyes filled with dread

Maybe the hardest part is looking in the mirror and thinking about the way he was always there even when there were more shadows than open spaces. You listen to the overlapping voices and still only hear white noise. The same story over and over but it never sinks.

Like a broken television
with the same frequency
on repeated patterns with
an antenna broken

Maybe the hardest part is rushing. Rushing to speed up time that drags itself in the snow. Rushing for peace. For you. For him. For her. For them. Rushing for absolution, for an end to an end, for burying the hatchet. The flower arrangements, the casket wood, the burial, the eulogy.

Like swerving into small spaces
burning rubber and barely
missing the onlookers to finally
get it all done

Maybe the hardest part is catching your breath once  there's nothing left. Once they're gone. Once you tell yourself that it's time. It's time to move on.

I know they say a person dies twice; once when they physically stop living and again when someone says their name for the last time. But I believe they die a third time; and that is when the last memory of them ceases to exist.