Father, father
Help me
Send your guidance from above.

Cause I need you now
I can no longer wait.
It seems like forever
Since you've been gone
Over time my heart has healed
But the void in my heart beats to a different tune to
That person I was

You know I never thought I'd say this
But im jealous...
...of the life you now live
Maybe one day I'll get to walk with you again
Talk with you again

I'll see you in time...
...Happy Birthday Grandad

The silence is deafening.
You are just getting settled
In your new ghostly home.
But it is the first day of winter
and I cannot remember a winter
without you.
So I talk to your empty chair.
Your book and glasses on the table.
Even the pipe you loved
and I hated is not removed.
I breathe its aromatic perfumed
tobacco like I did before.
You never told me how sick you were
But  I knew…I knew.
Now wearing your old sweater
I call our number again and again
The machine resurrects your voice.
I savor every nuance and inflexion
the soft gentle timbre I loved.
For a brief moment you are back here
with me once more.
You ask me to leave a message.
It beeps.
I whisper
I miss you honey

In hard times, I used to forget myself ;
Caring became my escape from reality.
They weren't here for me, so I became their remedy,
The anchor, the one thing I wanted for oneself.

Now that hard times are finally behind me,
They don't need the anchor anymore.
Too content, I'm not what they look for
Maybe because I'm not available like I used to be...

And I still wet my eyes for manipulative people
Because I grieve my so-called friends and the old me.
I accept, again, that I've been used by somebody.
My heart aches, again, ashamed of having been feeble.

The sun tipping over the horizon
Lifts my lids each revolution of this Shady green sphere...
And for a few brief seconds
The fingers of sleep
Drag me back.

Warm pressure on my eyes,
Pooling, (re)opening them to the last
Paradise;
The only oasis where your eyes are not closed
And your bones are not dust somewhere
Mingling with the soil in Pittsburgh.

Just the same, I know you're the product now
Of some hypnagogic state;
Of the last traces of theoretical DMT swirling in my brain
As is leaves Morpheus behind in the shadows.

You're just the most beautiful hallucination
The truth in the chaos of dreams
Cluing me into what I've been denying
For 13 years.

Impossible that I've preserved you better
Than any mortician could have
In the recesses of my mind
You are a perfect replica
An unholy copy of the original
All creamy skin
And ocean eyes,
Full-lipped smile tipping somewhere between
Arrogance and joy.

"I'm gone," you say. "I'm dead."
Repeating what I already know
"I'm dead, I'm not coming back."
On repeat like the worst kind of ear worm;
A carousel of sound that dips and weaves through every filament of Unconsciousness.

Denial; like reaching out my hands
I shove against the reality, against the unreality
Against the prison sleep has woven
And crash forth
Damp and gasping
Like breaking the surface once more
Teetering over the horizon with the sun
Into the waking hell of another day.

The carousel makes another revolution.
See you on the other side tonight.

Take me to the place, where I can breathe again,
Where the pain will fade and the nightmares will end
Take me please, I can't bare anymore
Cause it hurts too much and my hearts too sore
For you were my life
But you're here no more

Sometimes in the summer and maybe in the spring,
I'd call to see how you are but you'd never answer.
June was your favourite month
and the 25 leaves that fell off your favourite tree.
But you weren't around to see
them so you pictured them in your head
and I pictured you too and I'd picture the times we
spent together because they
were the best times but now
that you're dead I picture you
more often even years down the line when your body is
gone but your legacy lives on.

I barely got to know you; I never even got to hold you,
But, god, I loved you, baby.
To the moon, to the stars, to wherever you now are, I loved you.
And, believe me, I’m far from the only one.

It’s so unfair that we’re down here and you’re up there but you won’t be alone or forgotten. Because not now, not ever, not for one moment will your memory fade.

Cruel ‘what if’s and ‘could have been’s will stick with us too, for time, poignant and painful as such things can be, but don’t doubt for even a second that you, our little warrior, my little Beastie, were worth every moment of joy and heartache a million times over.

I took a shot for you, you know; I’d take a hundred more, a thousand, or however many it took to get the chance to see you look up at me with big blue eyes that remind of simpler times, noonday skies, and warrior cries.

There are chances I wanted, countless memories I wanted to make, a lifetime of stumbles and laughs I’ll forever long to see and hear. But you’re still there, will always be there, even if it’s not the way I thought. Even if it’s not the way it should be, it’s the way it is, and I find solace in the fact that now, at least, you feel no pain. And if we must hurt so you can have peace, well, it’s a price we’re all willing to pay.

Because you, little man, have been so loved in your short time with us, precious and so special, that there isn’t anything in this world or any other we wouldn’t hesitate to do.

Our little warrior, the little boy who conquered everyone he met without need of a smile. The little boy with the heart of a lion, whose fire burned brighter than the stars above. Whose fight touched people and whose life – brief but shining bright – made them stronger

We’ll never forget you, Wyatt.
And, in the time we have between now and when we see you again, may we all try our hardest to have the strength that you did.