The Funeral

I dressed like I was told to dress when I was younger; a black suit, black pants, black tie, and frown.  I never was quite sure why I needed to personify the darkness that they room already felt, but that was always how it was and I was not going to be the one to break with tradition to garner attention.  We were all there for one last moment to remember the death of someone whom we all loved dearly.

I first met him several years ago when I was 27; we were at a bar when he bumped into me, stumbling on alcohol and delusions.  I did not mind the love tap and made nothing of it, but it happened multiple times in the small crowded bar that finally I looked over towards him.  The first words I ever muttered to him, slightly sarcastically, were "Is there an issue here?"  I remember his bloodshot eyes staring back as he replied, "Your face."  I could not help but laugh at the reply that has become so culturally accepted as no longer an insult, but rather just a comical interlude between real conversations that I extended my hand to help him steady his balance.  After we introduced ourselves, it was as if we were high school friends.  The problem was, though, that we were not high school friends, but we were trying to replicate that weird teenage bond.  Naturally this bond became torn, ripped, battered and bruised throughout our thirty year friendship yet not once did it fully disband.

In his coffin he lies there, colder than an Alaskan winter morning, family and friends shedding waterfalls of tears.  I stare at his lifeless body dressed all in black, recounting in my head the stories of us as the protagonists.  I swear I could see his eyes looking back at me, drowning me in the sadness of his early departure.  I never was religious, so I wait there humbly to show my respect to his life and family.  His wife sneaks around the corner of the casket and begins to sob uncontrollably, so I put my hand around her shoulders.  She does not react, almost as if she does not even feel my hand upon her, and closes her eyes and grabs her heart suddenly with urgency.  My immediate reaction was to call out for help but my voice was mute.

I whipped my head around to see a crowd rush towards the casket, nearly knocking myself and the coffin over to grab his wife, clutching her heart.  The mob runs right through me, ironically screaming frantically to stay calm to everyone in the building.  I stare up at the ceiling, and one light flickers above him.  Suddenly I realize the quickness of everything happening, from my arrival to the funeral to this very moment lying on the floor, as the one light above me bursts and I close my eyes.

Mirror

Midnight -- my reflection in the mirror dreary

Obscured by the moonlight -- grim and eerie

Reflected the depiction of gaudy displeasure

Quietly secured as my dim lit treasure

My life and my love ripped firmly untwined

And blackest of hearts matching eyes newly blind

To wearily speak in a weak fading obsession

Of my solitude, somberness and deep depression.

For my twin, deceptive in a world reversed,

Has lifted the reality of this body cursed,

Nerves unfeeling and skin untouched,

Writhing with malevolence clutched

Our visions blurred with misfortune between

As night turns darker in ominous routine

Gazing unwittingly towards an infallible version,

Of me, a perfect picture in peerless perversion,

Dodging the frozen stoning from Medusa's hair

I rest my skeleton in the corner, bare

And dream a nightmare of fictional truth

Of a soul untouched by heartbroken youth.