Existing

if a face could launch a thousand ships
then I wonder what can a tear do?
like the one I wasn’t supposed to see
last year on the first day of spring.

the sunlight cut across your face
in unforgiving sharpness and I saw how you would look
thirty years from now.
but it was a moot point anyways,
since you were decaying now
in an explosion of loss.
you wouldn’t look at me even when I said your name—
instead, turned away like you couldn’t bear the sight of me
and hid your face in your hair.
and I despaired because I couldn’t get you to see.
but I never could, could I?
since you were blind in the first place.

sweet sorrow was the name of the game
and we were both experts at it
counting the minutes of each day
until the last one.
desperate in our one shot at life
before it was too late and so
we grieved we laughed we shouted
and I described the play of light across your hair
(hungry)
while your fingers danced over my face
in a desperation born of love
trying to memorize each line and curve
before there was forever to forget.

you loved water: on your fifteenth birthday someone
gave you a miniature fountain
and you made me install it in your room
which had no outlet.
I hacked and banged and screeched at the wall
for being so solid and you laughed with me, at me.
“you’re so stubborn, I can’t tell who’s stupider,”
and you giggled in fits of hysteria
and I was so glad to hear it that I really forgave the wall
—really.

we walked in a garden, your hand on my arm
trusting that I wouldn’t leave you to your darkness,
discussing why trees grow so tall.
your views—optimistic
my views—pessimistic
our views—realistic.
I watched as the wind touched your hair
playfully tugging as if you could actually see it
a war of you against the world
was going on in your empty eyes
but we both knew
the true war was within
and it was you against yourself.

so on that spring day when you tried
to hide your sign of fear from me
it was the thunder of doom because you were giving up.
and if you lost hope
(you who refused to lose hope)
then it was the end and I was lost.
what could I do but listen to the sound of your mother
screaming against Fate
for having to suffer through such a thing
while you begged her in a whisper to
“calm down”

but you!
you had forever to calm down now
and I needed to find something to kick
to punch and destroy and kill
because how could it live while you couldn’t
in such an unfair world.
and what could I do but watch,
as you wasted away too tired to breathe
staring at something you couldn’t see anyway
until your skin made a perfect blend
with the white of the hospital bed
and the shadows under your eyes—
Hell gates.

when we buried you
the rain thrummed against the plastic of your casket
proving to me that there was a god
because he or she or it
wept with me for you.