What is a eulogy?
A confession of memory--
An avoidance of the singular truth.
I'm whispering to ghosts with no ears like they do on Sundays, in stuffy confession booths.
Eulogies are for the living,
The ones he left behind--
For his mother and father and two older brothers,
and truths to answers that they'll never find.
Eulogies are for the living but he's taken me with him.

At your death I was a ghost,
lying next to your body, I tried not to choke.
The suffocation of words I didn't say left me tired and broke.
I wanted to lay in the morgue and
f
  a
    l
      l
asleep with you there,
next to your blue glass eyes and brown curly hair.

The parting gift you left for me-- a dialogue in my head,
your ghost screams at me at night, I’m never alone in my bed.
A chorus of morphine alarms and IV drips silence me; and they sing my songs for you instead.

On the fourth floor of the brick wall barricade,
We stood at the window watching the rain,
I felt calm watching water drop suicide;
I thought how it'd be nice to die by your side.
My mind breached every professional boundary,
but my mouth remained closed,
looking back it was obvious-- they should've let me go.

I stayed with you on the worst days,
when you couldn't pick your head up from the bed.
Instead of encouraging movement and intervention,
I just sat there, right or wrong, and tried to follow what you said.