A Quiet Suicide

[Note: Mom, you might not want to read this. To everyone else, this was written on the one year anniversary of the death of my uncle Steve. RIP.]

A year is 365 days and too long a time
For it not to have been yesterday
For the earth to still be fresh on the
Beer-watered ashes of a permature addition
To a fatal second stroke in a place
Where the ground drops and flowers break hearts

A year's not long enough for everything to be gone
For a name to slip, a truth and a longing
For a box of old t-shirts to sit there lonely
Silently seeping out stories of a life once loved

A year's just long enough to remember a stale sandwich
A last outreach, a light left on and a door just ajar
A phone call after dinner, a surreal weeping
An anger and a rage and an unfamiliar screaming
From a handful of raveged hearts, raw with the sound of
An uncle, a brother, a son - quietly leaving.