6 Steps to Preemptive Grief

1.

I hear the things that you say.

You speak of wrongdoings, of social decay, you’re lording morality, ethics that fray. A spiel of your politics, spoken in grief, you tell me you’re desperate for broken relief.

I hear the twist of the bottle cap.

I hear the clink of the cup.

I hear the crackle of burning tobacco.

I hear you go to throw up.

You go on to speak of the sadness within, talking of pain from the places you’ve been. The people that hurt, the places that wound, the boy that you hate, the spiking at Spoons.

I hear the scratch of your nails down your arm.

I hear the puff of your sigh.

I hear the scrape as you grind up your weed.

I hear you swallow a cry.

You’re talking, lamenting, of all of your suffering,

All of the life that you’ve lived and how why,

With every morning and new opportunity,

All that you want is to die.

All that I want is to cry.

2.

I smell the burning of weed.

You stub out your blunt without thinking ahead, the ashes that singe at the walls of the shed. You’ll lose your deposit, I think in my head, with a numb disregard to what could’ve been said.

I know your money goes not on your rent.

I know your roommates are broke.

I know the ash stains are property damage.

I say nothing, take the last toke.

The stench of the bin bags all lining the wall, we mask it with coffee and cannabis. You smoke so much more than I’ve seen you before, and now all I can smell is your sadness.

Bacardi, beer. Malibu, tears.

The shed that we sit in is falling apart.

Vodka, fear. Are you even here?

I love you my friend, but you’re breaking my heart.

3.

I taste the bitter regret.

The dryness of tongue after smoking with you, I take a drink from your cup. The drink it is heady, the glass it is cold, the essence you drink to give up.

I leave to go and throw up.

The tears are abundant, the grief is in plenty,

I wish you’d just fucking grow up.

4.

I feel the pain in your heart.

The shed has dropped cold as the frost falls outside, the ground sends a chill through my toes. You put on a sad song, go mute and reclusive, like every night in this shed goes.

I feel the numbness that resonates.

I feel the draft through walls.

I feel the weight of the burden of friendship,

I feel nothing at all.

The blue fabric coating the rickety couch, the rough concrete flooring beneath. The searing of ashes that drops to my thigh and the gripping of sheer disbelief.

I feel my gaze slowly drift to the ground.

I feel my heart grow sore.

I feel my eyes sting as tears fight to flourish.

I see the blood on the floor.

5.

I see the blood on the floor.

I see your hands shake, your fingers that twitch, the flinch of your eye as you see my gaze switch. You’re killing yourself, I think in my head, I give it twelve months before you end up dead.

I don’t want to be at your bedside again, as monitors beep ‘neath the hospital lights.

I don’t want to grieve in advance yet again, as your stubbornness brings you to suicide.

I feel my fists clench as I try to breathe.

I feel myself grow frustrated.

I feel the stubborn tears push past my eyelids.

This grieving shan’t be abated.

Bleeding internally, wounded externally, fingers shoved right to the back of your throat. Rotting internally, bleeding externally, drink it all down ‘til your cheeks start to bloat.

I see the yellowing over your skin.

I see the cuts on your arm.

I see the glass bottles under your bed.

I see the people who suffer your harm.

I see the sagging that’s under your eyes.

I see the way you behave.

I see decaying teeth crumbled by acid.

I see your name on a grave.

I gaze at the shed wall that’s dotted with ash as if searching for peace in the sky. Constellations that cut through the concrete, preemptively grieving for when you might die.

I hope you don’t.

I hope you try.

The therapy isn’t to pass your time by.

6.

I hold the burning blunt back to my lips. I hear the crackle, I smell the bliss. I taste the smoke that brings peace to my head, I feel the silence fall over the shed.

I see you smile as you try to move past it,

Fabricate stories of nose bleeds and such.

I see you hope that the lies will be worth it,

I cannot handle you. This is too much.

I see the person you are. I see the person beneath your scarred skin. I see the cruelty, the selfish abandon, and I see who you are within.

Even the ugly, even the fool,

Even the broken and even the cruel.

Even the lies that you’ve spun for a while,

Even the parts that are rabid and wild.

Even the part of you clutching the bottle,

Even the you that is carving with blade,

Even the part that’s hunched over a basin,

Even the you that your parents forbade.

Even the parts that you drive you to drink,

To cut,

To purge,

You’re pushed to the brink.

I see the ugly, the good and the bad,

I see that you’re human, and that makes you sad.

Impossible standards for self and for other,

Regardless, I still think of you as my brother.

I see who you are, I see who you’ve been.

I love you, even with what I have seen.

I love you and the person that you could’ve been.