Friends After Life

A poem about grappling with a lost loved one's memory and needing them even when they're not there

Friends After Life

Your voice is unrecognizable now,
but always swimming in my mind;
It's a churning current,
a tugging string of pearls.
The more time that passes,
the years chopped up and spread-
confused and overlapping,
the more I forget your face,
the sound of your words,
the smell of your clothes,
and the person that I was
before I first felt your loss.
I wonder if those horrible words-
the ones that twisted the knife
deeper into my deepest wound-
would have ever had any power
had you not been lost.
Would time still count the same?
Would I still miss you?
I used to ask myself, "What would you do?"
But the answers stopped coming
when I surpassed your age
and suddenly I became the older one.
What would you do?
I used to ask you so many times,
but while I grew up,
you stayed right where you are-
in a bed beside your grandpa.
How would a child know?
I've begun to ask you for comfort
instead of desperate answers
because that's all you can give me now.
I hope you'll still be my friend
when I'm old and sleepy
because I still need you, just a little longer.

Author's Note

This poem doesn't have any particular structure. I just miss my best friend.