Please Keep Breathing (Journal of Poetry)

there's nothing I resent more than your decisiveness

Lately I can't stand the quiet
When I'm alone your loss crawls up my throat like vomit
I think about all the silly words that try so desperately to rush into the gaps you left in our lives

Like off brand bandaids floating in a puddle of blood

We all failed you, Mila
That is the truth and I can't stand to listen to these empty hums of sadness
I can't even stand my own
They make silence so terrifying
and fuck you for taking that from me in such an unbearably loud world
Your presence has never been more prominent and the irony in that makes me humiliated
I would say I can't believe it but that's not quite it
I just can't accept it
I can't accept that you chose to leave your legacy in that shitty little town you were so close to escaping