True Story 3

this is my first funeral.  i am nine and can't keep my shoes tied.  i can see the coffin from where we sit and it looks alien and sad.  someone speaks about your art and the words you bled onto paper.  someone else talks about your friend that burned out with you. i have seen the poems and the drawings--you knew you were going to die.  but, if we keep saying amen then we don't have to cry.  i stare at my feet wondering how we all continue to stand, to walk, to breathe.  it was so sudden and now here we are layered in black singing the songs you like, but cannot hear. i remember when your foot got run over by the car in the driveway.  who would have known that you were not invincible?

this is my second funeral.  i am 14 and waiting for someone to catch my breath.  there are pictures of you lined along the altar of the church, your heart-shaped face a dagger in my side.  a year ago we were in the backseat of the school bus eating pixie stixs.  a year ago we were giggling over hostile crushes and stolen kisses underneath the gym bleachers. now you are just pictures left undeveloped on my disposable camera or the cds i let you borrow but you never returned.  your blood is still on the street. we are all here instead of cleaning it up.  i won't dance the same anymore now that you are gone.  i won't laugh the same knowing that it will only continue to be stolen.  i refused to wear black eventhough i feel like i am blind stumbling through darkness.  i remember when you told me how excited you were about that dance.  why did you ever leave?

this is my third funeral.  i am 15 and figuring it out.  this time, i don't go.  when i was small you used to hold me in your lap and read stories. i have pictures to prove it.  i used to notice how our skin was the same color in the summer, like the color of coffee with a little cream.  i used to forget how you yelled.  i used to forget you could be mean.  after we left, i used to think that you did not have a heart, but in the end, your absent heart killed you.  i didn't cry when the phone call came.  i didn't want to seem a traitor.  i won't know where they buried you so i can't come leave flowers or all my inadequacies at your feet.  don't worry i'll learn to forgive along the way, but for now it is easier to be angry.  i remember when you sold all my things.  i wished that you would die.