You don't exist anymore

 

I decide to text you

I scroll through my contacts

I can’t find your name

I learn you’re gone all over again 

Anger

I really wanted you to know

What I’m going though

I’m mad I can’t tell you

Sadness

I hear a Father John Misty song

You loved them before you died

Of suicide

Grief

I feel normal sometimes

And then

My chest hurts 

I can’t focus

I sleep during the day

Exhaustion

This isn’t about me judging your choice

This isn't about me telling you what to do

Now that you’re gone it’s about me

Picking up the pieces of a life without you

I miss your teeth through your grin

And the accentsj you do with no clear country of origin

The stories of drinking your own contact lenses

Long drives through the mountains 

A yoga pose of the day on your calendar 

Writing one thing that happened every day

Rituals

Remember when we lived together?

One year on Washington street

Hula hoops as our only wall adornments

Going to yoga teacher training 

Which you convinced me to do 

Back then there were signs

You couldn’t remember to buy your own fruits

You ate my mango and I got mad at you

I just thought you were immature

I didn’t know you didn’t want to live anymore

But you hadn’t decided to take your own life

Yet

You struggled inside for ten more years

It got clearer and clearer the longer you went on

That a part of your mind was gone

The part that helped you stay tethered

You lost your mind and couldn’t hide it

Your obsession with meditation

fantasies of overcoming your mental boogie man

By 4 am or you’d take all that Adavan

42 pills

On thanksgiving

you never answered your phone

I knew you wanted to be gone

You become irate that I got involved

I told your family you might be suicidal

They found you alive but very unwell

You were committed to an institution 

I visited you there

After you missed my baby shower

Your mom and aunt came in your place

And gave my daughter a Corduroy Bear 

I realize in retrospect 

That in your opinion 

I over stepped

the many times I tried to save you

My intervention was a showing of love

It wasn’t meant to make you feel thwarted or disempowered

But it made you feel defeated, enraged, betrayed

I see that your resolve stood against my attempts

To keep you alive

Selfishly

You may have thought

You never gave me a chance to understand

Why I should support your choice

Instead you asked me to leave you alone

“Our toxic relationship”

Which I was shocked to hear you call it

Made you want to be apart from me

Floored is an understatement

I never thought we would be living such divergent lives

The time you and I went to West Virginia with Rose and Erin

Me, Rose, and Erin were all pregnant with our first babies and 

You were barely able to function

It was a weird feeling that trip

I felt sad for you

Not that you needed to be a mom

But that you knew you weren’t capable

That it wasn’t your path

That you weren’t a she

That you didn’t fit in your body

That you weren’t for this world

But 

I wanted you to stay anyways 

Still I constantly look for you in my phone

It’s been two months since you’re gone and

It’s been almost 2 and a half years since I’ve hugged you

And I never will again

You don’t know the trauma I’ve lived this past year

You couldn’t stay to listen or hear

It hurt you too much every time I shared

Which I why you asked to stop being friends

Then you left

I think of your mom every day

A mixture of heartache for her and wonder what if

What if she had just helped you heal

When you were young

I hear my judgement 

I need to stop blaming

I don’t blame myself

I wish someone had protected you

I used to try to be that role 

I remember joking I was grateful you were on my team

Because when you got drunk you could beat a bitch

And I didn’t want to be on the other side of the fight

You were on my side

And now you’re on the other side

The side I question exists

Do you have your consciousness

Without your body

Can you feel my love and pain?

Do you listen for me

When I cry in my room

And on walks every day

No matter how hard I try to relax

You don’t exist anymore

You don’t exist anymore

Acceptance is a bitch 

But not one I thought I wanted on my side of the fight

Relinquishing 

I surrender my fight

I give up resisting

I want to curl up

And be spread on warm toast

I want to be butter and honey

I want to be sweet and smooth

I feel so stop and go

I am not in the groove

I am not in the flow