The World Stopped

 
I watched you fade away    
to shades of grey    
and yellow    
as your body betrayed you.    
   
Images so hard to forget    
they scar    
   
You waited to leave    
in the moment I wasn't there,    
and I was there for every moment before.    
   
He needed it more than I    
and I am glad he has it.    
   
Waking to his words made the world stop.    
   
Still there was no time for breaking down.    
Things to do, to settle, to take care of.    
Make sure people get their moment,    
to grieve, to say goodbye,    
everyone before myself has always been my way.    
   
You looked so still, yet I swear I could see you breathing.    
   
No time to break down.    
Get the program, get the flowers, get the ground broken    
and the final performance is on it's way.    
Beautiful.    
The words, the songs, the sentiment.    
Put on my strong face, let them feel their moment,    
I'll find mine.    
   
We left playful pinwheels spinning on your grave.    
An echo of your carefree heart    
on the peaceful background of the cemetery    
where ducks swim around a pond    
in view of your favorite hiking trails.    
     
The perfect place to leave you.    
   
The moment found me.    
at a walk for Cancer    
two weeks after I watched it take you.    
How wise was that?!      
   
Stars out, moon bright,    
candles lit around the track.    
Somewhere your name was among the many who were lost or survived.    
A twinkling trail of pain and triumph.    
   
The break was strong, sudden, and violent.    
Drowning in every thought and feeling I'd kept behind the damn.    
An explosion that has never been equaled,    
the pressure no longer suffocating me.    
I cried in the crowd,    
but the arms around me were ones I could count on, lean on.    

It rained.    
Rain can be sudden in the South,    
and warm.    
I felt no difference between the rain and my tears    
as my body shook with the release of all my sorrow.    
   
I dreamed every night of you dying,    
Watched you fade away again and again    
every single    
horrible    
night.    
I was afraid to fall asleep.    
   
Then the haze.    
Wonderful numb,    
relieving silence.    
I popped pills,    
inhaled dust,    
to keep my quiet denial    
that life could possibly go on    
without you.    
   
There was an empty space after every joke    
where your laughter should have been.    
   
It was a full year before I could face you being gone.      
Right on the edge of going too far,    
I stopped before falling.    
I sat by the pond and talked to you.    
Watched the sun set and a ballet of bats fly into the night.    
   
Only those who know you can understand    
just how perfect a moment that was.    
   
The world keeps moving without you    
and time passes.    
   
I've watched your sons (my brothers)  
grow into men you'd be proud of,  
and see in them reflections of you.  
I see you in my children,    
who you will never know,    
who never get to know you.    
   
Every year I feel the weight of the tears,    
take stock of everything    
that has missed having you there,    
and I let myself feel it.    
Let myself miss you.    
Celebrate knowing you.    
   
Still I wish I'd said goodbye,    
let myself cry,    
in that moment when the world stopped.