Trigger Warning: Terminal Illness
The world has always been cruel to you,
Beating you into the mud and scarring your small body.
Sickness married you young, too young for you to understand its vows,
And yet you survived the long battle once before.
Your eyes shined the same then and in kindergarten years ago.
In the end, they pooled gallons of honey, too.
We intertwined atmospheres through someone we shared lovingly.
You, his best friend, and I, his lover.
Any given chance, I reminded him of how good you were for him,
That you were one of the better humans in his life.
To know that foolish boy was to understand he had no emotion to share,
And he didn’t lack with you or me.
You didn’t deserve the words I heard before our downfall.
I loved your kindness and need to perfect your best man’s duties,
Even in illness.
I vouched always for your light, while he only saw your decline.
It was always your spot, and he knew that.
You made the entire wedding brighter by standing by his side;
I never got to thank you for aiding him that day.
When he broke my heart, my first prayer was that you would help him heal
And be the support I tried to be in his darkness.
I worry the brokenness he carries worsens now that he’s lost you, too.
It’s been three years since our last smile shared, and I wish I hadn’t shut myself away.
Out of respect, I removed myself from everyone associated with that boy, even if I loved them.
I regret never getting to ride in your Volkswagen Beetle with you,
Or hearing your beautiful laugh in your living room one more time.
No one else gave better hugs and cuddles while sitting in my lap like you.
I cherished every waking moment with you, because there was truly not a human like you.
No other soul embodied sunlight and moonlight like you .
The news of your passing ripped me to my core—
It awoke old worries that I’d banished a long time ago.
The truck speeding down the interstate felt frozen in space as I read a memorial post.
Denial thrashed through me because you were the sun, after all. How could you disappear?
Watching everyone simultaneously post these radiating pictures of your face,
And reading “Rest Easy,” behind them all.
Reality settled in my bones, and I remembered that life was not fair.
This grief has raised many glass-shattering questions within me.
Do I reach out to your family that hates me because of who I was involved with?
Do I send my kind words to the man we both know harbors a debt filled with regret?
Or do I just keep quiet because I am in your past?
I sent a card and plant to your celebration of life,
And I hope no one was angry that I cared after all this time.
This empathy of mine will forever curse my fate,
Because I care, even as centuries and millennia of love grow further away.
Elyssa Latham (she/her) is a woman of words and an avid reader. Elyssa’s works
express strong emotions that people go through and get the reader to feel those
emotions alongside her. She wants readers to take away that it is okay to allow
yourself to feel and that you can craft art out of pain.
Featured image by David Vig on Unsplash.
