The water glass on my bedside

Table smells of hard spirits;

It took my spirit after a bullet

And two boys took the lives

Of two other boys,

One my friend.

On my old phone I scroll

To the texts of a dead man

I read the nonchalant,

The mundane messages,

So normal and yet

They say so much more now.

The news left me speechless

But my fingers flew fast

Typing one last text to the

Body of a boy I once held,

His hands big and soft and warm,

His lips bigger and softer and warmer,

Now small and cold and hard.

So many things I wanted to say,

So many things left unsaid,

There was so much to say and yet

So little I could recall in the

Numb stupor of my shock.

The words I could remember

So clearly, they stung so deeply,

Were “I’m so sorry, Josh.”

Press send. Red exclamation.

The message will never deliver.

The time stamp, two years later,

Two years since we talked

And yet the touch of this boy

Touched me more than I knew,

Didn’t know until I couldn’t tell him.

Cascading down my face

Is a wet waterfall of regret,

Pooling onto my pillow,

There are no more words

To describe losing something, someone

I never even knew I had.