The people we know are not
those people, not really.
They are constructs of our
imagination, living in our heads
and they are more or less
accurate based on how open
we manage to be with each other.
Our memories are not recordings
they are simulacrum of things
that happened acted out
in pantomime by the homunculus
we all make of friends and loved ones.
And the tragic thing is that
when we go, when we finish
and make memories no more
they go with us, our shadow people.
Every dead person takes everyone
they ever met with them, every time.
No one is an island.
No life is just one is one life.
A light doesn't go out
a blackout occurs.
A drop doesn't fall
the flood comes.
What a terrible tragedy that
singular death is because it
contains a multitude of deaths
and the only comfort I can give
is that when you go, and we all must,
the make believe ghost of you lives on
in the memory mummer's play
inside the heads of everyone
that you have ever met.
Small comfort.
Perhaps.