I mean, did you really think the wind wouldn’t hit your cheeks as sharply? We all smell the nicotine on you. You’re not fooling any of us. Saw you hang a wreath on your fathers grave. A sticky ritual that lurks around that graveyard. And anger is a right of passage when you’ve been submerged in the act of dying for ten years. That’s like half of your existence. Can you believe that? Can any of us fucking believe that? Can we reach our hands out far enough without falling in it ourselves? We can see the darkness under your eyes set as the circles grow. And other people don’t understand- they think you bounced back like a rubber band. All meticulously drawn out as if each step really means something- and we don’t think it does because we watched you cover up your tracks without a fucking trace. You hate how fast the Holidays are creeping through the calendar. Feel it cut your knuckles as you punch at each door you know you’ll never open. Watch everyone look back at you while they move on and and on and on. You’re feet are cemented in a moment: in a year end. In a January. In a finality that we will never understand. That’s the saddest part about it. And this is nothing but a letter that you wrote to yourself to try and make sense of it all. Hovering over the truth. Begging for a break from the sadness before it breaks you even more. It’s just the holidays, after all. The south side of town is where a patch of grass grows around the grave you kneel at and yell at and at cry at and beg for mercy at. Everything is taking its time at gutting you at the fucking core. Slowly poisoning your organs. Tempted you to lean into it all. Just a little farther until you can forget. Maybe you’re fooling everyone else. 735 days of grief and a part of you died too- but she was strong. We loved her dearly. She was a blessing. Sinner and saint. She would tell you to stop screaming at mirrors and rest your tired fists. Break the nicotine fever and be still. So, very still, because you deserve a calm sea. Float on as you wish because you were drowning. Come back up for air again and again and again until the salt tastes sweet. -AMT