In offering to my several friends who have recently lost dear ones… Words cannot begin to touch this. But what I have, I give you.
You cannot break me.
I’ve already been broken.
For, once, I loved.
So deeply
that the depth cannot be spoken.
And now I am unbreakable
For I’m already broken.
– s. Clark
Fatality, for you, is just a word.
An abstract concept
measured in statistics.
Red numbers on a page.
Extra paperwork.
It once was the same for me,
a cursory glance,
a mournful sigh,
and moving on.
But now it bears
the crushing weight of familiarity.
Gut-wrenching impact
of experience.
The shocked horror of
recognizing
an enemy’s face.
Death has become too close
for me to name him
something so scientific.
– s. Clark
By now, I think
there will always be the ghost
of who I was
before I lost you,
standing on the path behind me,
where I left her,
staring down in confusion
at the bloodstained footprints
trailing the part of me
that moved on,
fixed forever to that spot,
horrified by the nightmare,
waiting,
waiting to wake up.
– s. Clark