I didn't write your poem this year.

I won't say I forgot.

I can't say I wasn't thinking about it.

I can just sit here

with heavy eyes

and wish it had all gone differently.

I didn't let myself mourn this year.

Didn't shed a single tear in your name.

It makes me feel sick that I still can't seem to.

Makes me wonder

just what kind of person I am.

You wouldn't know me now.

I doubt that I'd know you.

I was a child

and you were younger than I am now.

You know, it was a year later

that the schools decided

it was important to teach their 14-year-olds

about suicide.

I spent that day sobbing in the hall,

as the children still in the classrooms made jokes

about guns and knives.

The day that marked your death

seems less and less about you every year.

I know this is bad,

but it's becoming more about me.

The one day I will demand attention

from neglectful friends.

Because I am still alive.

I am still alive.

It was the choice I made.

I could have followed you;

five years is long enough to figure out how.

I could have stopped the pain.

I could have forgotten you!

But even now,

I have to keep what little there is left

alive.

So this poem was overdue.

And unlike you, old friend,

I realize that when you stumble and fall,

you'll always eventually get up again.

Sometimes I wish I knew that all the time.

It was May 29, 1997. I obsessively wrote him poems on November 29 (the half year mark) and May 29 every year, until this one. I can't believe it took me so long... I can't believe that it's been five years, either.