CW: suicide, non-graphic
In answer to David, and the words of Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
~
When I touch the center of my sorrow
There is Carl
And an emptiness
Where his guidance,
And smile,
And presence should be.
And there are questions:
Why?
Why him?
Why then?
I remember when I heard -
My heart beating out of my chest,
Up into my ears.
Eighteen years old, and -
For some reason -
Calling every person I knew, saying:
Carl is gone,
Carl is gone,
Carl is gone.
And all these years later,
Iβm still looking up at him
And he, still telling me
That God has a plan.
That God has a great plan for my life.
Could he not believe the same for himself?
Could he not have lived long, grown old - or rather, older -
Could he not have met his grandchildren
Could he not have come round again, when I finished college, to check in
I figured that maybe all these plans werenβt worth so much
If someone like him could be left behind
And so I sought out some other plan
One without Suicide, without
Giving Up.
And eventually, as time passed, I put Carl away.
I hid him right in the center -
Layer by layer,
Buffering the pain, cloaking the trigger.
The one sorrow I do not touch,
For it is the one I least understand.
You see, even now
I fear becoming some sort of βEvan Hansenβ character.
I wasnβt his best friend, I wasnβt kin.
I donβt have any photos of us.
I can barely remember his face anymore.
But the truth is, when I lost him,
Something else died, too.
And I have this feeling
That Iβll spend the rest of my life
Searching for it,
And wondering
What it really was.