loss

See You Later, Dear Friend

It’s been ten years since you died, but it’s been more than ten years since I’ve seen you last. I still see you in my dreams occasionally. The last time I saw you, you apologized to me, but I wasn’t sure why.

You said you were going to work on getting better. That you had hit rock bottom, and you never wanted to experience it again.

You took me to a bar in the city with paint splatters on the wall and we shared dinner. I think we held hands.

You told me what it felt like hitting your lowest of lows, waking up in your car with vomit all over you, not sure what had happened to you the night before.

When you hugged me, it didn’t feel like goodbye, but it was.

We used to talk on the phone as you painted your nails. I’d listen to the sirens in the distance and wonder if we lived different lives. If we could ever experience a world the same way.

I’d braid your hair on Friday nights; other girls would put your hair in pigtails, but I liked a single braid.

I remember lying my head on your chest, your hairy stomach soft underneath me. You never complained about the weight of me.

I remember you playing the guitar at night. I remember listening to Fleetwood Mac with you and thinking all our thoughts were worth writing down.

I never took a picture with you because I thought I was ugly, unphotogenic.

I remember you telling me you played me the guitar because you didn’t know the words to say.

It’s been ten years since you died, and even though I have a guitar, I still don’t know the words to say.

I never said goodbye.

She told me you loved me. That you always loved me. I must have hurt you because I laughed when you tried to kiss me the first time.

But now, you are buried and gone, and I’m here. You always played me “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd. I guess I just wish you were here. I feel like we could talk all night and maybe I’d let you play me the guitar. And maybe you’d let me braid your hair.

It’s been too long, and I never said goodbye.

Isabelle Palerma

Remembering a Friend

In 2022, I lost a friend who was so dear to me. He called us “kindred spirits” and we talked up until a couple of days before his mysterious death. We were close, yet so much about him I felt I never knew.

He was gentle in the face of my storms and though he was soft-spoken, he fought his demons every day in a way that took more courage than I have. He was two days away from forty when he passed, and it’s easy to say that’s too young to die. His flame burnt out, but his memory will live on in all the lives he touched.

He described himself as an eccedentesiast, and I am too to some extent, but his smile, though it hurt him, was one of the things I will remember him for. He smiled through the pain. I cannot write a eulogy for him because I didn’t know him like that, but from what I did know, he was a beautiful person who filled the world with positivity, even when he himself felt bleak.

Just a few of the lessons he shared with me along the journey.

He was found dead in his sleep in 2022, and I’m not sure if his family ever got the closure they deserve from this. I hope they do because I know from experience how closure can aid in the healing process, even if you don’t think you’ll ever be able to breathe again without a person.

I have trouble forgiving myself for some of the things I said to him before he died – things said with the intent to help him to live before he died, things said not knowing he was going to die young – but now hopefully, he can finally set his burdens down and he can be at peace somewhere in the heavens.

The last few weeks before he passed, we spoke frequently and he wrote me a poem. In it, he said, “Even in the darkest of nights and days, I know I can rely on her always.”

He called me his pretty Italian girl and encouraged me to write when I felt like quitting. He taught me to appreciate the parts of me I found ugly. He swore he trusted me, but I wonder how much of himself he hid behind that smile.

We talked about getting a cup of coffee together one day and sharing our writing; now, I imagine he writes in the stars and smiles down on me. I don’t know if I believe in Heaven, but I know I believe he deserves peace.

Today would have been his 42nd birthday, and while I have to move forward, when I hear the Beatles on the radio in the car, I still roll down my windows and belt it out just for you.

Just ignore the fact that sometimes when I sing along, I get a little misty-eyed, thinking of you.

Happy birthday, friend.

Isabelle Palerma

A Poem from Those Left Behind

A flame was never meant to extinguish this abruptly. Starved of oxygen, your origami letters became ash in a mouth that bled (for too many years).
I would say goodbye, but the word is a branding iron razed against a smoldering tongue.

Forgiveness never came easily for the dead.
Graveyards are full of grudges and barely concealed debts.
When I told you that I loved you, I disguised the words (behind shattered glass bottles and origami letters confettied like New Year’s).

I remember your eyes cold like marbles, frozen like winter ponds.
(I made a half-joke and thought myself funny, but your lips never curled up in a smile.)
This is autobiography, but all you ever asked for was a poem or a story (but not this – not an obituary or an elegy. Not a eulogy or a goodbye).

I could never say goodbye. I ran from endings & ripped the last page out of every book I ever read.

Sometimes, I even wrote stories that ended in the middle of a —