Hurting and burying it all in blocks and chains

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Requiem
Hold me long my man, let’s wander the earth some more.
Come, sit, let’s smoke the stars & eat the sun.
Is it not why we are here, to love & be loved?
Come friend, this road is short.
The evening comes quick here.
Take my unholy hand;
let’s find laughter among the weeds,
within the stream,
within the sweet lips of our lovers.
O wild boy dance quick.
Let your feet sing.
O wild child don’t stop the song for evening comes,
evening comes & everything must sleep.
Hold me long friend, let’s wander the earth some more.
Let’s draw our jeans,
watch our joints curl smoke,
dance with the giggling girls,
walk the stairs back into darkness again & again.
Come my friend, let’s wander this earth some more.


For those who have followed and read my posts here over the long years, you know how i return again and again to grief and trauma. You know how i place emphasis on the darkness that is human and how i weep for what is. You know me.


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I have mourned most of my life, searching for meaning, for succour and i have not been able to answer the questions of the universe. I have mourned the passing of strangers, wondered where they went, prayed for those they left behind but this, this hurt, this fever burning in my chest like a caged bird, it has no name. This is more than pain, more than wild horses on the prairie.

My head hurts, my heartbeat is louder than the ceiling fan circling over my head like a cruel bird waiting to lace claws into my shoulder blades. My hands tremble even as i write and my eyes are heavy with the tears i had promised myself never to cry again. You see it was yesterday; it was yesterday, i heard the news that you are gone, my friend.

Each time i try to speak, the words clot together like old wounds and fill my throat with sand. My heart is torn to shreds like temple cloth. I heard it rip yesterday and since then, i have felt its stumbling rhythm in the cave of my chest. I cannot speak of my feelings here, my friend. I cannot tell you what it means to call your name and find absence. This was not the plan. This was not the dream.

You just got married. You just had a baby girl. You had the world under your feet and the sky within your reach yet, you lie there, solemn, frozen, untethered from all that you loved and cared for. I must pause to wipe my eyes so my unfettered feelings do not ruin these pages. What can i say now? What can i tell you? You are there and i am here and that is all there is to this life—meeting and parting. I am tired of these quick goodbyes. You were barely thirty-five. How can one so young leave so soon and what am i, lost in all this heaviness, still doing in this nonchalant place? My friend, we were supposed to grow old together, laughing at the antics of the little ones.

We have not talked in a long while. I have kept to myself as i am used to doing but i knew that you were never far away. I could always reach you if i wanted. But i never wanted to. The need for your presence never came and now, you are no more. What will i do with all these memories now? How do i explain who we were and who we used to be? How will I tell these old stories now with that empty space where you occupied? Each mention of your name becomes a prayer; may he rest in peace, each story becomes an elegy to you.

Yesterday, i could not speak so I wrote an elegy to you. I cannot remember what i wrote and i may never look at it again but i know that in the midst of the madness that pain caused, i wrote and wrote something i have never written before. Maybe it is a prayer to you, to find safety and eternity. Maybe it is a plea to God to be gentle unto those you left behind. But this was not the plan, my friend. This was not the script we drafted still young with laughter, still tough with dreams.

A knife creeps out of my chest and the man in my mouth stumbles out clothed with silence. I have wept long and hard. My eyes are red with your absence. The balance of the air, the very nature of the earth’s revolution has shifted. My world has tumbled upside down. What do i live for? What is the essence of all of these pursuits of wealth, love, time, memory? It is a distraction from the truth—we are born only so that we can die. It is that simple. I cannot sleep. I cannot stay awake. I want to smoke a long blunt in your name. Get drunk in your name. Forget for a few hours that my turn will come soon and there is nothing i can do about it.

I thought i knew the in and out of grief until yesterday. My skin drowned in my tears and my chest opened into the wings of the wind. Why did you have to go now? Why? I will be praying for you. I will be hoping for you. I will be rooting for you. You remain forever my friend. Rest in Peace M.


Eternal rest grant him O lord and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace, Amin.


**Listening to Sasha Sloan - Too sad to cry.



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2 comments
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M sounds like cool peeps. I am sorry to be meeting him this way. He rests now. He did his time and we must do ours. It is the hardship in parting that makes his memories worthwhile. How his friendship through your perspective is contagious enough to leave me lamenting.

May your soul continue fighting to find peace Mwalim. May the sun find your face soon. My condolences 🙏

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He was @tezmel, he was. I don't know what to do. I am good with crying about myself but weeping about others, I don't want to. I don't want to grieve like this again. I don't know what to do. Last night I got drunk, real drunk and loud. I just wanted the pain in my chest to stop. I wanted to feel sane and whole again. At least for a few hours. I don't know what to do.

May he find rest. May he find rest.

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