And a poem

One Month On

(for a friend)

It’s been a month.

I haven’t forgotten you.

I think of you, think of “wow, I wish

I knew what he would have said about this”

I think of jokes that would have made you laugh

You once said, from the depths of pain,

“I’ll probably die soon” and I reacted

The way most mentally-robust people do,

With horror and a “no, don’t say that, I would be sad”

And you responded, “You’ll forget me soon enough.”

I told you then it wasn’t true.

And it isn’t true now.

I still feel the hole, though perhaps now

It is more like a broken window on a house

Than it is like a decompression failure on an aircraft;

I am able to feel happiness again without it

Immediately being sucked out into the void

I have not forgotten you, though

I wish you were still here, and healthy, and sound

I think of things that would have amused you

And I hope you are somewhere, and maybe able to

Catch some inkling of those amusing things

Perhaps though I am grateful

That you are beyond the pain now

And beyond the many annoyances that

Exist in our world now

But I still miss you, because your presence

Sometimes made the annoyances a bit

More tolerable, or you would say something funny

About them, and make them sting a little less.

Though I will say I have learned one thing:

Depression or “sadness” or whatever does lie;

I realize now that if something happened to me

(please God may it not)

I would leave a hole in someone else’s life,

Maybe even someone I barely knew.