May 11th for the Rest of My Life

i want you to imagine that you are twenty-five.

you are twenty-five and you are coming home from work.

you are coming home from work

and you are two streets away from your house

and it is three in the morning, give or take or whatever.

~

you're twenty-five

and you're coming home

and you're two streets away

and then you're in a car accident.

~

you're in a car accident

and you can't do anything for the rest of your life

because some drunk idiot has taken it away from you.

he has taken you away from your family

and your family away from you

and your life away from anyone that you could've met.

~

you were twenty-five and now you're paralyzed.

and it was May 11th.

it was May 11th, 2003

and that's what it was.

and that's who you were.

~

and now it is May 11th, 2019

and it is three in the morning

and you're gone.

you are forty and you are gone.

~

and how does that happen to someone?

how--

how does it happen?

and why on the same day?

and why around the same time?

and if someone could just explain it to me,

or to him,

or to anyone in the family

because i don't get it.

~

and i know nobody else does.

i mean, how could they?

this doesn't happen to people,

this happens to characters,

but i'm not a character

and he is just my cousin.

~

could someone explain?

because why May 11th?

and why that time?

and why him? why our family?

why 2003?

why let him stay for sixteen years

if you were just going to take him

on the same day

around the same time

from the same people who loved him?

~

i wanted to meet him,

but i was two at best.

i wanted to know him,

but i couldn't,

i can't,

and i won't.

~

May 11th 2003.

May 11th 2019.

May 11th for the rest of my life.

i don't understand it.

can somebody explain?