I'll see you, the Darling Dead.

And you couldn’t merely
die, you had to
blow us all away
shock us into living, into breathing, into
crying with empty eyes and too-full hearts and
you remind me how to breathe
you remind me
and
I wonder
what it was like to fall
what where you thinking
you, such a being of sunshine and half-joking complaints,
so beautiful, so human,
high school drama and endless warmth and light and
you would have been something wondrous
or rather
something even more wondrous then
you already were
are
you are
you still are.
they change tenses, when you die,
as if by dying
you never were
but you are
and you were
and you will be
in as much as all of us are
all of us that loved—
that love you.
all of us that hold you
all of us that you made make will make smile.

You are beautiful.
We shan’t forget.
I shan’t
forget.

You know,
I dislike goodbyes
the way a cat dislikes baths
and with as much sass
so there is no goodbye in this. Only

that here’s one long hug, for now,
dear heart.
I’ll find you soon enough,
whispers eternal in the
present tense,
undying love,
love enough to last forever,
and

I’ll see you then.
I’ll see you then.
I’ll see you,
then.