I wish I were sick, so that this slow death within me might have a reason. Instead, I write poetry so desperately, hoping to leave behind words that might offer the people I love some explanation, perhaps even a little comfort. As though the right words could make sense of an absence that should never have to be explained.
Most nights, my mind wanders toward imagined accidents and ways of simply not being here anymore. I cry thinking about the countless ways the news could reach the people I love, and I ache knowing that no explanation could spare them from the pain. Sometimes, I even consider making myself someone they could hate, foolishly believing that resentment might hurt them less than grief.
I think about my little sister, and I hate that I ever have to wonder why I came first. Why did my parents bring home a baby girl into a world that can be so cruel to women? Who will protect her when I cannot? Who will remind her of her worth when the world tries to make her forget it?
I know that no words of mine could ever prepare her for a loss like this, and that thought breaks me in ways I cannot explain. I love her so much that imagining her grief feels unbearable. I don't want to take anything away from her life. She is so sweet, and the last thing I would ever want is for the world to turn that sweetness into bitterness.
We're reaching an age where she will begin to find more of herself, where she will become her own person in ways I can only begin to imagine. I would like to believe that I've helped her grow a little stronger, that I've given her some of the tools she'll need to navigate a world that doesn't always handle gentle souls with care. I hope she knows she deserves kindness, that she never has to become cruel just to survive.
I wish I could promise her that everything will be all right. I wish I could promise myself the same.
Perhaps that's what hurts most: loving people so deeply while feeling so lost inside yourself that you don't know how to stay. I have so many words left to write, so many things I wish I knew how to say aloud. And somewhere beneath all of them is a part of me that wishes someone could understand the silence, too.
I do not know how much longer I can write; even the words begin to escape me, for I am an ordinary man with uncommon thoughts I never sought.