I heard
And at first
I felt nothing at all
I became blank
My mouth empty
As a broken window
My mind
Melted wax
With all my thoughts
Swimming across the other
But then
One became solid
And it caught
In the back of my throat
I tried to swallow
But it only became more solid
More real
From a whisper
To a scream
Reality was melted wax
Pouring over my skin
I wanted to quiet the scream
But I was frozen
Caught in the truth
That was becoming comprehension
I tried to avoid it
But I was frozen
Shocked
By the strong sense of sadness
That began pulling at my hands
“Come Along”
It said
“You have to say goodbye”
“But Wait!”
I said back
“I can’t say goodbye
No one is leaving
He isn’t leaving”
The sadness
It seemed
Had been joined
By my disbelief
But what a thin veil it was
That I tried to hold
Over my eyes
Suddenly
I was unfrozen
I was melted wax
Pouring myself onto the floor
We were all pouring our sadness
Onto one another
Grabbing onto each other
To know we weren’t alone
The disbelief and the emptiness
The sadness and the reality
All mixed together
Into a memory
And we grabbed onto it
But we don’t know
Where to put it
Because it
Doesn’t feel like
A memory
It feels like a person
A young person
It isn’t an it at all
But a he
And he goes to our school
He is in our classes
How did he become
A memory?