Fallen Angel

I did not know you,
yet I cry for you
often because I feel as if I do now.
I feel your pain and loneliness.
I, too, see the appeal of the rush
of the cars in the streets
from the 15^th story window and
dream of the throbbing bite of the blade
that promises a way out.
I know your burden; I carry it,
too.
I feel you close; I think
of you often.
I cry because
I understand your purpose: to make people see,
to make them feel,
to try to make them understand.
And I’m sorry because you are right.
Sometimes it takes
a fallen angel
to look past our own suffering.

Weightless

You surprise me as you begin
to regularly inhabit my dreams
with that smile of yours I’ve only seen
in obituary photographs.
That voice I never heard
is strong and clear in my
subconscious.
You speak to me like the sun,
because the angel you are has no more
burden.
You remind me every night of why
you left;
And I awake every morning knowing I will
never forget.

Henry

I will never hear you say
why you did it;
but I like to think it was not out of fear
of the future or
cowardice, sadness, or unbearable weight on your slim shoulders,
but rather because you saw
what others felt
and you felt it, too;
and as you sat at the ledge looking down,
it was not out of weakness that you flew,
but out of bravery to know that your message
may not be heard,
out of hope that as you fell into eternal slumber
somebody would wake up
and feel the suffering,
too.

For those who jumped, and for those who didn’t jump but wish they had

When you jumped, I cried because
I wished I’d been holding your hand as you fell.
When you were gone, I screamed at the sky to
take me, too.
When I was alone, I was wedged
in a corner of darkness, and I had locked myself in.
I’d wished you’d carried me with you, because
I was just as trapped, just as lost; the books weighed me down, too, you know.
I was filled with just as much hate and hopelessness and
cynicism, just as thirsty for nothingness.

Now, when I laugh with my whole
heart, I wish you were here laughing, too.
When I sit in the sun and feel the Earth kiss my nose,
I wish you were beside me because
I am learning sometimes
it takes a while sitting in the sun to feel its warmth,
and sometimes when we finally
stumble out
of the darkness, it takes a while for our eyes to
adjust to the light.
But when we can finally get a glimpse of it, it is spectacular.
I wish you were here to see it.