Shards

He killed himself yesterday. 

The text comes in early, I'm still sleeping, and it takes a while to sort out sender, sort out the story, but the pieces fall into place much too quickly in the end. He is dead. The January winds too cold to bear and I don't know if the story could ever have ended differently. She is quiet, too quiet, all day my heart aches for her and I want to make it all go away. Erase his face from her scar tissue.

It is too real, too permanent. They will always have lost you. I see your face before me and don't understand what it means that you are gone.

This life is precious, beyond clichés and Carpe
Diems; this life is precious. It is yours, and yours alone. It will drag you through the mud, beat you when you are so far down you can't believe the Universe would kick you harder, it will grow despair in your chest and teach you often to doubt everything you ever thought made tomorrow worth waiting for. But it is the only one you have. And whether or not you believe it, people will find ways to love you. Whether or not you can handle it, something will make this life good enough that it is better to stay in it than not.

Whether you want it or not, your premature end
will hurt those you thought you were saving
more than your staying ever could.

But I do hope your pain is gone.