When you don't die well.

So I am not normally a 'sappy' poem writing person, but this has been going around in my head for some time, weirdly enough in poem form. My older brother died last year of a drug overdose. I have had a wide range of emotions around this and am definitely not over it (probably never will be). I had expected days like his birthday and holidays to be hard, but they weren't. Instead its the most random things that make me feel overwhelmingly emotional. Like when the song 'See you again' comes on the radio (often), or when I see people wearing the same 'Pink Floyd' shirt as the one my brother was buried in. I see him everywhere, any dark haired bearded man will have my brothers face when I see them out of the corner of my eye. This poem is from the perspective of a grieving sister, so it is pretty raw and may not be politically correct.

WHEN YOU DON'T DIE WELL

When everybody else is doing it
When you are already drunk, so taking someone elses prescription doesn't seem like a big deal
When things start to get hazy
When you look peaceful, like you are going to sleep, on the outside but on the inside your brain is screaming that something is going very wrong
When you can't breath and it hurts
When your friend is dying next to you and you can't help him
When your dad gets a knock on the door and it's a police officer
When your parents have to call every relative and give them the news and cry, over and over
When grief freezes the lives of everyone who loves you
When everyone is trying to understand how this could have happened
When it's time for the family to go to your viewing
When everybody stares at your body and cries for hours
When nobody wants to leave because they know it's the last time they will be able to see you, to touch your skin, even if it's cold
When you have a very formal funeral, not what you would have planned at all, but the funeral wasn't for you, was it? It was for who you were to everyone else
When your divorced parents can't even be civil at your funeral, they thought the only time they would see each other again was at your wedding, but you will never have one
When everyone is mad at you
When they lower your coffin into the ground
When it seems impossible that your body is actually in there
When they shovel dirt over top of you, until you just look like a dark patch in a field
When people feel better when they forget about you, but never want to forget
When all you are now is a gravestone that is creepy, because your actual bones are under it
When people always leave you flowers which is strange because you are a guy, no one ever gave you flowers when you were alive
When no one will ever be the same
When your friend lived but you died and they don't know why
When the first aid attendant still has nightmares about how he couldn't save you, he feels guilty, he was your friend
When your family doesn't know what to do with your stuff, your truck, your house, your tools, your clothes, your debt
When every photograph of you becomes a precious keepsake, all there is left of you
When people think of you and it makes them sad
When your family is plagued by 'what if's' and how they might have been able to stop you
When your Facebook page becomes a memorial
When everything said about you is in past tense
When people feel the need to tell your family 'I'm sure he is in Heaven', but only God really knows
When your little brothers and sisters used to look up to you, but now they can't
When people ask how you died and no one wants to answer, no one wants people to think less of you
When the way you died seems to overshadow who you were
When everyone knows you didn't do it on purpose, but can't deny that you are to blame
When all your plans, ambitions, hopes, and dreams will never happen, for no reason at all
When your nieces and nephews will never hug to meet their uncle, you will just be a name and a story
When your death was such a waste, you were amazing
When nobody will ever stop loving you, you just aren't hear to experience it
When it still doesn't seem real
When you don't die well and you can't change it.
-Mellissa Davis


He was just hanging out with a friend. He tried out a drug for the first time and died. Don't do drugs. Don't even try them.