i was never very confident
but when i lost you
i was confident that i lost it all

i've been living in your old room
the AC never kicked in quite right
but i still feel breezes of air caress my body right into my core
and i like to think they're you
and not the cracked window a few feet away from me
letting in the taunts of the world that lost its colors once you were lowered within it

sometimes i wish i was down in the living room
so you could come back to your old room
instead of the children's hospital
even though you were 18
the dry atmosphere caused the worst of nosebleeds
but that was just minor to the pain you were going through

you came home
but you were in the living room
i was still wishing you could come back to your old room
i would happily fold all my t-shirts and pack them in a suitcase
just for storage
because i could never leave you for more than an hour

i was unfamiliar with the word "hospice"
until you were taken under their care
i know our humidifier has been broken for some time now
but they rolled that clanky bed in
and the oxygen that the whole family breathed
just got dryer
because of your new mattress and matching sheets
similar to the one that you've slept in while the chemotherapy was entering through
making you brittle, bare and pale

on an early summer morning i witnessed the biggest irony in my life
you died in the living room
and i started to hate myself more as i watched your chest pump its last breath that you would ever take
i started to hate myself because maybe if you were in the old room i fall asleep in every night
it would somehow make you live a little bit longer
like that makes any ******* sense

..
i should've seen it coming
i should've seen it coming because a few nights before you were trying your best to play the sly cooper collection on the PS3
because it was your favorite series and you passed out because of all the morphine in your body dulling the pain
but i thought video games would ease that pain better because of the nostalgic value
so i just hoped you were reminiscing of the ability to actually hold a controller properly
even if the drugs took up 80% of your personality
basically i should've seen it coming because games were your passion
and it was let go so effortlessly

it'll be 3 years in august
and i swear despite what i just wrote it's getting easier
and on your death date
we travel
because god knows remaining in the house that day would not be healthy for a broken family like us

sometimes i pick out postcards so i can put them on your grave so you can see where i've been
so i trust you send me a pretty tourist postcard just so i know what heaven looks like