yesterday I went to Luke's house
and picked up your few earthly possessions.
your GameCube controller,
your PlayStation 2 with Tony Hawk's Underground 2.
(you were the best in the world at that game.)
your tattered stuffed animal, a pig.
i shoved these weird, ethereal fragments of you
into a red canvas grocery bag,
and walked half an hour back to my place.
plopped the bag down in the doorway of my room.
and it's still there. i can't touch it, i just stare at it
while sitting on the edge of my bed in the morning.

i keep sending you links to funny articles I find on the internet.
i know you won't get them but i guess it's worth it just in case.
i can't stop talking to you.
i talk to you more now than i did in the weeks before you died.
i started to take your friendship for granted, and i'm sorry.

first my grandpa, then my cousin, then Marissa, then my dad, then Mara. now you.
i don't want to know who's next.
i don't want anyone to be next.
i am sick of dealing with this.
i am afraid that i am getting used to this.

i don't want to write a thousand songs about this.
i am sick of making art about death.
i am sick of consuming art about death.
it's cannibalistic, it's voyeuristic,
but sometimes it's the only thing that helps.
so i guess it's okay to be a cannibal voyeur for a while
if it's what gets me through the night.

at your memorial service,
i knew i had to try my best to be strong.
but despite that, i didn't try, and I wasn't strong.
i cried, i couldn't stop.
i was drained, i was a void.
there was nothing in me I could use
to support your other friends,
or to stand up to the people who were most of the reason you were even lifeless in that box to begin with.
i remember before i got there how badly i was burning
with resentment for them,
filled to the brim with the urge to confront them.
but I didn't.
i sat surrounded by friends, sobbing like a widow,
knowing that your mother thought she had lost a son.
she could never be convinced she had lost a daughter,
but god, i wanted to try.

i didn't even stand up to your abusive ex.
i am a coward. i am sheepish. i avoid hard conversations.
i am not sure if these people will ever know the monolithic role they played in your death,
because i did not tell them.
for years to come, this spectre will continue
to subtly place its hands on my shoulders
and whisper in my ear when i'm least expecting it.

but one thing I do know
is that the people who abused you saw me
praying at your casket and speaking to you
as if you could hear me.
and I know they saw me screaming,
wailing into Emile's shoulder,
going fucking insane,
as Emile did their absolute best
to console the inconsolable wreck of a human being
that I was in that moment.
i know you would have hated to see it,
it was what you dreaded most.
and I hope your abusers hated it
even half as much as you would have.
and I hope, i hope to goddess
that these people largely responsible for your death
saw these scenes unfold and felt some pang of guilt,
some resonant note of shame
echoing around in the hulking hollow steel containers
that pump blood through their chests.

it's not that i want them to suffer for what they did to you.
i mean, sometimes i do.
but not right now.
right now i just want them to know what they did,
so that maybe they can achieve some shred of personal growth,
and maybe someday heal the way we're all supposed to.

but at the moment.
i don't think they even feel the thorns in their sides,
so they can't pluck them out.
so if they do heal, the skin will grow over the thorns
and it'll still hurt them forever.
i want to shake them and tell them:
"please recognize what's really hurting you.
please pluck it out before your skin envelops it.
you owe it to yourself, and you owe it to the people you've hurt."

i wrote this song until my hand got so cold i couldn't move it.
so i wrapped it in my scarf and i shoved it in my pocket,
and eventually it got warm again so i kept writing.

i came home and i got that tattered stuffed pig out of the bag,
and i put it on my mantelpiece.
and i promise it's going to sit in a prominent spot
in every place i ever call my home for the rest of my life.
i promise.