Who Was my Friend Who is Gone?

It's hard to calculate the loss.

I don't know anybody with whom I can discuss

The esoteric things we liked.

I'm still here and I have to roam a world

Where nobody, not my wife, not my parents,

Not even my son

Speak my language.

It's hard to calculate the loss.

I'm beginning to think I don't know anybody at all.

It's confusing, and leaves me weak,

But I don't think I even knew you.

Your death broke open the seals

On the carefully kept secrets

Of your family's sordid traumas.

I had to speak to abusers, lovers, friends,

All who thought they knew you,

All of them telling slightly different stories

Of who you were.

It's hard to calculate the loss.

I understand now; the magic was you knowing me.

You weren't always right

(Most of the time you were right.)

But you knew me better,

You cared to know me,

More than anyone else.

You listened when I called to tell you,

Like an excited child thinking

They had made a heretofore unknown discovery,

Of some entertaining thing you had known of

For ages.

It's hard to calculate the loss.

Because it seems so unlike you

To not be a phone call away.

Because your death was so stupid

And we were all so slow.

And nobody knew how your heart was so wounded.

Nobody knew.

You would never really say.

You made it clear you wanted to know about us,

And I think now, we were all happy to believe

Whatever inner story we had about you,

Never seeking to disabuse ourselves of them,

Too lazy to listen to you.

It's hard to calculate the loss.

Because I have to go on living

In a mad world that

We were all only barely surviving.

But you are gone.

You are gone.

You are gone.

My eyes hurt.

I am so tired.

I never did enough to get to know you.

It's too late.

You are gone.

Who were you,

That you helped me know myself so much better?

I cannot tell you a number, or a size, or a shape,

But your death is a loss too large for my heart.

I only ever knew your shadow.

But

I miss you.

I love you.