Funeral Reception

I am trapped in a dream. Invisible wires wrap around my lungs, breaking off my breathing and leaving me in a stupor of transfixed suffocation. My mind comes to a grinding halt as my friends try to ask me questions and gather me into the incessant chatter that is assaulting my ears and plummeting through my brain, disturbing my thoughts. Smoke billows from an ashtray somewhere in the room while a girl on the corner of a huge overstuffed couch sniffles and heaves sobs of grief. We all mourn together. Doing whatever we can to let our substance of choice overtake our minds and quiet our morbid thoughts. I am chugging clear liquor from a water bottle someone had obviously pilfered off his or her carelessly oblivious parents. Everyone around me is tearful, discussing memories of our lost friend. I am a rock, unmoving and unyielding, my eyes do not water, my physical appearance utters no sign of the quake slowly rocking my soul to pieces. We discuss the whys and the hows. We trade blame around the room. We try to process what made her pull the trigger. Questions emit from senseless mouths, pouring from foolhardy minds with no filter. Questions bigger than us, that will go unanswered until someone looks to a possible figment of religion or higher power for an answer that is not guaranteed to be correct but offers solace of some sort of response. But guesses are useless. Her memory remains and the rest is deep in the earth, left to decompose and nourish trees and flowers. So fragile and breakable, another life is lost.