When the Searchlights Have Stopped: DEAR MARKIE T
Wake up at night
all I can see is your face
ten years and still not right
I wake up and think about
if someday in the void of bright white light
if my love, if my friend, I'd ever see you again
and I'll tell you by the end of this song
what I screamed, what I shouted for so long
couldn't explain the slow, sick desiccation of my heart,
thought we'd never be apart
I'm sorry you had so much pain in only 14 years
you could have risen to great heights but you leaped from them instead
to the stinging of your tears
to the music of the spheres
to the trepidation and sadness pent up inside your head
over in 4 seconds, I wondered what you thought before the ocean swallowed you dead
no funeral to cry at in consternation
numbing time with crushed up lines
was an everyday destination
I tried to go with you
And they put a tube down my throat
I laughed hysterically
And on gastric contents, I choke
sticks and stones
I remember the day they told us
mud and a realtor revealed your skull and bones
I was and I'm colder than the artic
a hidden cache of feelings somewhere
shock and stoicism allowed no room to feel cathartic
sick because memory cannot conjure the color of your eyes
forever beheading myself
for your descent into the abyss,
why couldn't I see your unhappiness
I couldn't see I was indulging a plate of lies
all along depression and drugs were the mask, depression and drugs were the disguise
it's a gift to be here to say Hellos before Goodbyes!
To my friend, forever lost from suicide.