If I looked you in the eye what would I say? I lost you, I think of all the things I would have said, all the things we could have done. We wasted the time, I can still smell your tobacco, the way you'd throw a fresh cigarette away if you saw me coming, not from a sense of shame, but of respect you'd toss it from your fingers. Sitting under that oak, you'd see me from a distance and my pace would quicken as I saw you, our paths converging never planned. What would I say to you if I looked you in the eye? Would I tell you that I loved you? Would I try to explain that you kept me alive? That I considered you my brother?
You were the only one who demanded nothing of me, you were the only one I didn't need to impress, you were the only one who never minded who I was or how I was. The thought of seeing you in that studio got me into school, it took me to a class where I would ignore the punches thrown at me, where I would fight guys twice my size to just get my jacket or my bag back, where I would have to search around the room to find anything.
The only people who stood up for me in those moments - God they might have well as written you a death sentence. They were the closest things I had to friends - they weren't sending me hate mail, pretending to defend me and punching me in the middle of drama undercover of characterisation. Regardless of the lies they spurted they were genuine. They helped you deeper into the world which live life to die. "I don't care if it kills me, none of us do, as long as we've lived for today like we've nothing to lose, I don't give a **** if I die tomorrow neither do they." Her voice echoes in my ears, just like her words when I told her you were gone "he can't be dead, I didn't think he could die." How fast she took back her words, how quickly she didn't mean it.
The courage you and that neo-Nazi classmate of yours gave me, every day you got me there, gave me the strength to get through, what a strange place that was? As I would wander home, standing looking into the water of the canal it was like I saw your face beneath the water, telling me that that poison I imagined, the downing that I dreamed of wasn't mine, because I had tomorrow and might see you again.
Oh and now that is yours, just a shadow of my memory, I begin to forget your voice. I can hardly remember you without regret, save for those long moments drinking coffee, hugging you and burying my face in the leather to smell that memory, laced with aftershave and cigarettes.
What would I say to you? I would tell you without hesitation that I wish I could take away the hurt, that I love you without question or falter, because I do consider you my brother, that I would have brought you back to life if I had thought that I could have. But now it's been well past two years since I saw you, and almost two years since I lost you and I still love you and that will never go away, but now it is time for something new. The memories are not worth the cost of remembering how sometimes I ran to you to escape the rubbish that people were throwing at me, how I felt safe when I was with you, how people didn't try to kick me in the back, the good stays locked in my heart, but those roads no longer walked.
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