My friend Shannon has now been gone one month. It's so surreal, and doesn't make any sense. Her absence unspeakably tragic and infuriating and confusing. Her family asks regularly where she went. Where did you go? I don't think they're asking about the afterlife so much as asking why she isn't here with us, while we go on without her. It doesn't make sense.
I keep being reminded of many things, but one of them is an exchange from a deleted scene of the Doctor Who episode, "The Doctor's Daughter."
- What do we do now?
- We go on. We live. We remember. What else can we do?
Trying to remember you
is like carrying water
in my hands a long distance
across sand. Somewhere people are waiting.
They have drunk nothing for days.
Your name was the food I lived on;
now my mouth is full of dirt and ash.
To say your name was to be surrounded
by feathers and silk; now, reaching out,
I touch glass and barbed wire.
Your name was the thread connecting my life;
now I am fragments on a tailor's floor.
I was dancing when I
learned of your death; may
my feet be severed from my body.
- Stephen Dobyns