Just as the shadows folded
themselves into the hills
for the night
and the sun dropped its
enveloping glint into
the corner of the looking glass

I drove slowly past your suicide

I could imagine the
scene as if I was there
You were pitifully slumped
over the dashboard
the telltale spray of
sacrificial lamb's blood
across the back window
confirmed
you sold your mind
in a shotgun barrage sale
The passenger door hung opened
as if ominously
inviting all lost souls
to join you
Birds circled
but did not dare
descend

I don't know why you
wanted to be buried
so far from home
maybe you knew
that we would
simultaneously haunt
each other
with a lost love
that never fully made sense

I've been a ghost town since
your unsettling
impersonal
departure
The drive down was
haunting...waking nightmares
and dulling pain
with whatever I could get
my hands on
Mumbled ranting fever dreams
of not so sacred cows
skipped over songs
and roadside immolation

Now I'm here

and they're casting lots
for your belongings
Without explanation
my mind drifts
to the moment we come into the world
screaming as the air hits your lungs
for the first time
they put you in your first tiny
pair of clothes
and you are so loved in those first
days
We blink into existence
Dance in its splendor
Sulk in its darkness
then we are gone just as fast
as they lower us into the ground
no longer screaming
wrapped in our last set of clothes
I turn away from
their morbid possession dissection
because you already gave me
so much
the weight is heavy enough
I look to my brother
without saying a word
and he knows it's time for the
long journey home