he died yesterday

The day started as usual. 5:30 AM with a cup of cheap coffee and an indigo sunrise between the lines of the Earth and observable Galaxy.

We were the first friends we had, so reality would thus dictate that the connection we shared was our greatest.

So of course, time is the most we had in common. Our biggest difference is that...today, only I got to see that sunrise.

Rewind. To the beginning.

I thought you were way too fucking weird and you thought I was abhorrently normal. But after talking, knowing how I was cut off from the public schooling system and you totally sucked at having friends both led us to have the same best friend: dogs.

So...we bonded over dogs, and ever since, the loyalty we had to each other...was like two puppy best friends. You were 13. I was 12.

Fast forward.

It was nearly a year and it wasn't even an issue. You and I were best friends. Besterest. Est. So it's understandable when you were afraid when I was the first person you came out as gay to. You lived in Massachusetts and I lived in California and even I could feel your fear across a thousand miles. And I wanted to hug you. Nobody had ever trusted me so much. We told everything to each other and it was because of you that I could explore who I was.

You told me all about the cute guy who sat next to you in English class and how his smile and laugh was the one thing that you valued despite the fact that the world was against everything you loved. And god knows I wanted you to be so fucking happy because that's all I ever wanted you to be. You told me you were and God I wish I had known you had such a talent for lying.

Fast forward.

Another half a year had gone by and you were growing distant. You had been telling me that the guy who you liked turned against you and called you a faggot when you told him about your feelings and never did I want to run one thousand miles to punch a man in the fucking teeth. You brought up alcohol a lot and how much you enjoyed it but it was not a healing tool but a poison for you and if you had at least told me you wanted to be saved I would have spent all my time lifting weights to build up enough strength to pull the oak tree crushing your chest off and prove to you how much better things were gonna get. But I couldn't even open a fucking pickle jar, how was I going to show you where life could take you? But you smiled and you told me it was okay but I was young and naive and took everything at face value.

Fast forward.

You came out to your parents and the day I felt no greater rage was when you told me what Exodus was. You were funny and perfect the way you were even though you had to take OxyContin and Xanax enough to fuck your brain into believing that you were half-decent, and you were angry, and you were sad, and you were hurt, and you were confused and confusing yourself and fuck it, so was I, when people left bruises on your arms and you left slices on your own. You were a shadow of the radiant sun I met and cried and laughed with over shitty puns and music.

Fast forward.

You stopped coming online. I learned from an e-mail from the mother who rejected who you were that you bled yourself out from the neck and never left the bathtub with a bottle of pills and a blade of Crimson rotting your hands and curling your fingers in unnatural ways and I screamed and I cried and I coped the same way you did with alcohol and painkillers and bleeding and I couldn't even go to your fucking funeral because I couldn't save you when everyone else turned you away.

Stop.

The coffee's getting cold. The clock hasn't moved in four years and the sunrise is still ugly and my mind is still fucked up as to how you could ever believe it was the only solution. I put poison into the equation and a broken man was a result but I know that because of you I've got to learn to love even though my mind isn't capable of half the naïveté and love it used to be.

If I'll have saved one person from learning from your specter's dribbling mouth from photographs monsters sending me from the crime scene I never wanted to conceive, instead of growing old and sharing friendship with the person who helped me explore myself...my failure will at least be somewhat redeemed.

Even though the coffee tastes like shit, it's better than the taste in my mouth your passing. But I'll watch the sunrise that comes, no matter what color it sucks...

Because at least I know you'll have seen it a few times and I can share something with your ghost.

I love you. Because you taught me what love was. To love myself. And to love and accept the life I can live being uncorpselike.

You died yesterday. Because a day hasn't passed since.