“She’s dead.” 

Just like that:

two words cause an eruption; 

A dam break. 

She was alive, 

and laughing, 

and smiling, 

and doing her job

(and doing whatever it is —

important or not —

that a person does 

when they’re living 

and you’re not thinking about them.)
*
“There was a gun,”*

they said.
*
“Her boyfriend is dead too,”* 

they said. 

“It was a parking dispute,”

they said.

And no amount of explanation 

could take the air that escaped her lungs

and put it back

to restart that beautiful, 

big,

loving heart inside her. 

And then you think, 

Man, if I had picked up the phone. 

Man, if I had made more effort. 

Man, if I had been a better friend. 

But you know you can’t change the past, 

and even three hours ago
when you were folding clothes, 

and she was sitting in that house

is the past. 

And now she’s gone and you don’t know why. 

“Everything happens for a reason,” 

they say. 

But they don’t tell you what the reason is.

And sometimes, you never figure it out. 

Then comes the candles, and the funeral.

And an eighteen year old ray of sunshine
is being put in the ground. 

And you’re here. 

Living, 

and breathing, 

and folding clothes. 

And you wonder why her 

and not you. 

You’re surely not deserving enough

to live 

while she can’t. 

And her family; 

All you can think about is her mother, 

and her father. 

And you remember watching TV, 

and riding the boat on the lake, 

and the cookouts, 

and even that time she was sleeping
and snoring a little.

You can still hear her voice. 

And remember that week before Christmas
when you saw her,
and she was really busy making coffee? 

But she sad hi to you and mom anyway. 

Nothing is the same anymore.

The world just isn’t the place it used to be.

Things like that just don’t happen where you live. 
Maybe in Los Angeles, 

or Florida. 

But certainly not in Maine. 

Not to someone you went to high school with. 

And certainly not her. 

No, not her. 

But it happened. 

A 74 year old man 

shot and killed your friend. 

Stole her life, and her light. 

And the worst part is that the world
keeps on turning 

even thought it feels like it stopped.