No. (2016)
No
No, no, no no.
Oh God.
Shattering, crashing, rolling.
Dead…
Gone and gone and oh, God she is gone.
A friendship dies in a tangle of
Crushed and twisted metal in the dark.
Oh, how I hope you were not afraid, and
Yet, I know you were.
Alone and afraid and me so far away.
I dropped the phone when they told me.
I dropped to the ground and cried;
Tears falling, sobs wracking and
My mother’s heart breaking on the other end of the line.
So much time has passed.
Still the pain can slam into me
At the most unexpected time.
At my Wedding, I word a ring we picked out as children.
It was blue.
When my son was born, I introduced him to your parents
And for a moment you were there too, and we didn’t cry.
Well, not too much, anyway.
He will know you, if only through stories and pictures.
You are not forgotten.
30 November, 2016
Poet’s Notes: My childhood best friend and a dear friend well into adulthood was killed in a car accident at night on her Birthday in 2011. I do not traditionally write when I am in pain, so I wrote nothing at the time. However, the past couple of weeks, as I have been putting my first poetry book together, I have run across so many poems written about our friendship and upon reflection of her passing. It pulled a string of memories forward and this is the best way I know to describe the complicated emotions I have of a friendship that was cut too short by death.
