At nineteen years old I had to ask my coworker What it meant to have someone Stand at your wedding. I have seen more overdoses, More suicides, More accidental shootings Than I have seen lives created; Lives joined. I do not know what it means To stand at someone's wedding But I do know what it means to be a pallbearer Because I remember the tears In my father's eyes When he laid his father to rest Due to medicinal negligence. I do not know What exactly happens at a wedding But I can tell you What happens When they find your best friend since kindergarten Cold In a hotel room miles away With a needle in her arm, I can tell you that we all hugged her mother And smoked cigarettes And wished that we could be spelling it Heroine instead of ****** But the world doesn't work that way And sometimes, Most of the time, When people ask you if you want some coke They do not mean the soft drink But sometimes the people I love Accept it any way.