The bonds made within that space are not easily broken
Cluttered with vocabulary words
Textbooks
Care
And hard work
A relatively short time in the big picture
But sometimes I am all they have
The only one to tell them they are worth something
And deserve to chase whatever dreams they can
Each year unfurls like a clean sheet of paper
Unmarked with pencil
But at certain angles you can see the depressions and imprints
from all the pages written atop the current one
They do as much for me as I them
Giving meaning in a purposeless world that threatens collapse every minute
Pushing me to give a **** about what happens next
Teaching me that there is always a new perspective to be taken
Something to be absorbed
Instead of sitting quietly in apathy
Waiting for my turn to go
You were one of the kids I wanted to keep track of
To see where you would go and what you would make of yourself
You were accomplishing everything you had wanted
You leaned on me as a mentor and I felt significant
Knowing you thought of me for advice
I know of others that were lost before
A car accident
An overdose
A suicide
All gone before they turned 18
I had counted myself lucky until now that it had never touched me directly
Always a few degrees of separation between
My breath caught ragged in my throat
In disbelief when I saw your name embedded within that email
Coupled with the phrase “it is with great sadness”
And to know that you were gone
It was your 21st birthday
Someone told me that the first one is always the hardest
But I can’t imagine this ever getting easier.
May 30, 2021
May 30, 2021 at 7:17 PM UTC
The bonds made within that space are not easily broken
Cluttered with vocabulary words
Textbooks
Care
And hard work
A relatively short time in the big picture
But sometimes I am all they have
The only one to tell them they are worth something
And deserve to chase whatever dreams they can
Each year unfurls like a clean sheet of paper
Unmarked with pencil
But at certain angles you can see the depressions and imprints
from all the pages written atop the current one
They do as much for me as I them
Giving meaning in a purposeless world that threatens collapse every minute
Pushing me to give a **** about what happens next
Teaching me that there is always a new perspective to be taken
Something to be absorbed
Instead of sitting quietly in apathy
Waiting for my turn to go
You were one of the kids I wanted to keep track of
To see where you would go and what you would make of yourself
You were accomplishing everything you had wanted
You leaned on me as a mentor and I felt significant
Knowing you thought of me for advice
I know of others that were lost before
A car accident
An overdose
A suicide
All gone before they turned 18
I had counted myself lucky until now that it had never touched me directly
Always a few degrees of separation between
My breath caught ragged in my throat
In disbelief when I saw your name embedded within that email
Coupled with the phrase “it is with great sadness”
And to know that you were gone
It was your 21st birthday
Someone told me that the first one is always the hardest
But I can’t imagine this ever getting easier.