I'm not gonna lie
This is gonna be hard

I'm forever wandering along a cold windy shoreline
Staring at my feet as the waves try to grab my feet
My white dress flows in the wind
Staring at the beautiful lake Michigan and seeing a hint of blue among the mess of grey
The world has spent so much time trying to define me
Trying to take the light inside me
Sometimes figures talk me away from falling into the grey waves
But one day
I didn't care
And I fell in
And I saw everything
All my memories
And at the bottom of it all
Sat a sobbing teenage boy
His sweater was drenched in water and tears
He saw me
He saw me there
He saw me falling farther than him
I closed my eyes and hoped
And prayed it would be over soon
But then I felt something
A cold hand
Pulling me back to the shore

Maxwell was his name
And he is still here
Always with me
Now I no longer walk that shore alone
Every night
Every dream
Every nightmare
He is there holding my hand
Comforting me

Everyone needs a Maxwell
A cold hand to pull you back onto the shore when you fall in
A friend
A hero
A permanent part of who you are
Maxwell
Thank you for helping me

Brookyln Nine-Nine flashes across the screen of my laptop
I wonder if this show makes you  think about me

Because even the obnoxious theme song reminds me of

That oversized, purple couch I will never sit on again ,
The Christmas tree you hosted in your living room until March,
Or the pictures that your daughter drew, strung up on the wall next to the sign you bought reading
“You Are My Sunshine”

I wonder if you ever bought that gray sectional,
Or put the tree up extra early this year
Or moved that sign to your daughter’s bedroom door

Every cheesy one-liner Andy Samberg says
Leaves the words you left lonely
In the back of my head.

You were right, that night
When I drove south to a familiar nowhere
To see an open door with your lopsided grin.
You were right,
I think I did love you.

I promised myself I would not let the memory of you ruin this television show.

But I find it hard to watch,
I find it hard to think,
I find it hard to know that I must coincide with the inability to know
how you are
or who you are
Anymore.

Rumors tell me about the weight you’ve lost,
And how the speckled gray now covers nearly all of your freshly shaven head.

I know that your skin would not have slowed to wrinkle with mine,
but I cannot help but roam around the unknown of you and I.




Our episodes did not end
With a bittersweet goodbye or a tragic farewell,
The cliffhanger too skewed to draw conclusions from
A forgettable ending to a promising pilot.

We were not a series.
I did not make the finale.
Life is not a network sitcom
I cannot watch the scenes of your life that proceed without me

As much as I want,
Your existence didn’t cease when your credits rolled to me.
And with every memorable scene we did share,
I am thankful that it did not broadcast on NBC.