Noah

[flotsson]

This is really personal; I probably shouldn't be posting it. It's simple and not well considered, but for some reason I feel like it's important to me that people read it. My cousin, only 22, passed last month and I wrote this the night of the funeral, so if discussion of that sort bothers you, please don't read.


In my bedroom   
before sleeping   
I count all the stars   
in the stucco.   
Your friend--   
or was she a   
cousin?--   
dressed in flowing   
midnight, with guitar   
cradled:   
she sang that you would be   
up there now,   
and in every beam   
of light and cloud   
in the sky,   
promised you would be   
there now:   
in the stars 

But,   
I think I saw something   
there was something   
sick in her spit,   
a moldering word   
or unspoken slight,   
that she saw in your   
passing,   
oh Noah. 

I wish I could have thought   
of words more quickly.   
But,   
what can ever be said?   
You're gone.   
Your beauty, taken from   
the world, instead   
a cracked and broken   
clay vessel, and we know,   
we all know,   
we'll never see your light   
again.