When I was 8,
I went to the funeral
Of a distant aunt I never knew.
Death and grief were concepts foreign to me,
But when I saw her lying there,
Surrounded by flowers,
I kissed her marble cheek
And cried.

When I was 11
My mother got a call in the middle of the night
From 10, 000 miles away
In a place that smelled like mangoes and coconuts.
She was crying so hard,
That all my dad and I could do was pet her hair
As she said over and over,
“I’m an orphan now.”

In the summer of my 15th year,
My cousin had a personality that filled every crevice in a room
With a voice as commanding as waterfall cascades.
But she was so small as we sat in her car
Her voice quiet
As she told me that she lost the baby.
“I wonder if it was a boy or a girl.”
She gave birth to a beautiful boy two years later,
But sometimes when no one is looking,
I still see her place a hand over her stomach.

16 years old
And my best friend sparkled amid glass beakers and diagrams.
Who knew that behind her goggles were tired eyes
And “I want to die” were ringed around her wrists,
Each one marking a day she almost did, but didn’t.
“I’m too much of a coward to do it.”
She had said to me.
“But it feels like I’m already dead.”

I was 17
When I sat on my friend’s porch
A spring breeze playing in our hair,
One of the warmest days we’ve experienced since the cold touch of winter.
But she was wrapped up in blankets and shivering
As I held her hand.
“I’m 16, and I don’t have a mom anymore.”
Her smile was as bitter as the coffee I had brought her,
Red eyes staring blankly at anything
But the silver bangles that glittered in the sun.

They always talk about
How death is only bad for the people left behind.
But I wonder how it must feel
To watch those you love deteriorate
Without the power to tell them,
“I’m okay.”