When you left, despite me knowing you'd leave, the shock was still apparent.

The bedroom light is left on.
I take melatonin to fall asleep.
My stomach is always empty despite eating.
I fixate on your last breath.
Your chest rising.
Your chest falling.
Your quiet little sigh.
Your face tensing and then relaxing.
I make a mini shrine on my dresser out of your pictures.
I call my dad and realize that's gone too.
I dream of roads I've never traveled on.
I dream of flying to Texas and leaving here forever.
I dream of escaping.
The house is empty.
No one tells you of the shock or the trauma.
You just understand, that as soon as you can comprehend it, Death is for us all--young and old, terminally ill and seemingly perfectly healthy, parent or child, high school alumni or dropout, wife or fiance, girlfriend or best friend, young and old

I keep wilting carnations in my room.
Anything with an expiration date reminds me of the loss.
I try to remember your commanding voice and your loud laughter.
I try to love.
I try to care.
I keep your pictures to remember your face before...you changed.

Now all I try to forget are the changes.
I try to forget you saying you weren't hungry.
Your food scraping off the plate into the garbage.
You saying you weren't hungry.
You sleeping in until 10am.
How you used to get up at 6am sharp every morning.
You saying you weren't hungry.
You not talking anymore.
You...emaciated and frail.
You...changing.
Your pain.
The sound of the concentrator humming.
The mechanical noises of the defibrillator and its exhausted sigh.
You saying you weren't hungry anymore.
Your last breath.
Your quiet little sigh.
Your serene smile.
Everything was so tired, grandpa.
Everything was so tired...

Dear God,

Can you hear my prayers?
I've been crying out to you for years.
The loneliness I feel is like a black hole.
I feel like I don't belong anywhere,
not even in my own body.
Do you understand my pain?
Please will you hold me tight.
Tell me everything's going to be ok.
I yearn for a father's love that is a
source of comfort not confusion.
A safe love.
Why didn't you protect me?
I know we live in a world of freewill
But how could you sit back and watch a child
get used and abused.
It doesn't make sense to me.
I have so many questions...
I'm really sad.
I feel broken.
My internal world feels branded.
People don't understand me.
I don't understand me.
I'm tired of this fog.
Please lift this veil of shame from my face.
Please do something.
Help me escape this inner hell.
I want to be free.

I'm eager,
To rip you off my chest
With all the bleeding that would come with that
While I looked at the clock,
Slowly turning until it stopped.

Until it happens,
You'll be gripping the walls of my mind with your dark fingernails

Untitled

I call, no answer
I write, no reply
I scream out your name, nothing but a fall breeze in response

This is the end...
I guess this is the end...
Is this the end?
I'm so uncertain, torn, perplexed, mind-boggled
I can't piece it together

Did I hurt you?
If I did it was unintentional
Was the distance too far?
Like a rubber band stretched too thin
Or were we just not solid enough?
Like glass people, in glass houses, living glass lives

To be completely honest
Not knowing hurts more than missing you
I feel like we're characters in a book, and someone's ripped out the last few chapters
No one will know how our story ends

But I guess it has ended, it's just incomplete
There clearly will not be anymore chapters in this book
But the ****** was weak and unappealing

If I could go back and rewrite the ending, I'd go out with a bang
Plates would be thrown, voices raised
Fury, rage, adrenaline, passion

Something to prove, to myself
That it mattered
That we mattered
Instead this just feels, broken

You did teach me many things though
You taught me that nothing in life is constant
That no matter how hard you try, how much you care
Somethings are just beyond you

You taught me that love is fragile
And that "I love you" means "I love you now"
That the worst thing you can do to someone is to be indifferent about them
That even hatred has more meaning than nothing

I don't really cry anymore
Did you know that?
Would you care?
I guess when you left you took that too

I feel like I cant appropriately put into words how I feel about you now
So I'll leave this section for another day
When my thoughts are more clear

I woke up
a year ago today
innocent
unknowing
And went to bed
broken and heavy as stone.
They say that when
you lose someone
that day is forever
the end of your old life
and the beginning of the new one,
the life without.
Each day learning
how to cope with
the gaping hole
that was once filled with her.

my chest heaves
from poor health
or heartache
it’s hard to say
what I do know
is the weight
of your absence
feels heavier today

tomorrow's thanksgiving,
i've been trying to avoid
thinking about this day
for weeks.

i've lodged the thought of
it out of my head,
i've buried it away
but i can no longer
avoid it.

i don't want to
stare at an empty
place at the table.

four plates,
four forks,
four spoons,
four knives,
four glasses,
instead of five.

having to fill the silence
with questions about
school and post-grad life,
to steer the topic away
from how empty and sad
we feel without you.

at some points,
seven months
feels the same
as one.

time physically passes by,
and the next thing i know,
it's been seven months
rather than three.

it feels subjective to me,
i've been waiting for time
to mend me and my
hurting heart
but the day hasn't
come.

living with the loss
of you will always
sting,
even if it's just a bit.

i will stare at
the empty place
tomorrow and wonder
why you had to be taken
from me.

i give thanks for the 21
years i had with you
but they'll never feel like
enough.

do they celebrate
thanksgiving in heaven?