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There Is One Loss That Will Always Hurt

In Memory of a Friend

By Andrea LawrencePublished 2 years ago 6 min read
Top Story - July 2022
25
Nebraska landscape. | Victoria Pusateri, Pexels

Rainbow confetti on the ground,

drag queens sail by on floats,

church members with banners

that say they're accepting

and doling out hugs.

But none of it, NONE

of it will bring back my friend

who used to put on a long wig,

red high heels with fancy straps,

and a flowy skirt that went to his ankles.

It was his favorite outfit for coffee shops

where he'd sing and play his guitar;

he'd sing songs about how his father

inappropriately

touched him

when he was a child.

No parade is going to bring back

my gender-fluid friend from the grave.

He died in a house fire.

He lived in a cheap house

in Springfield, Missouri.

He had returned to the city

to complete his college education.

He had a semester left.

My friend took a break from college for years,

so he could go on a self-exploration journey,

he was trying to reckon

with the demons his father

introduced to him in a small town

in Nebraska.

— — —

My friend moved all over the country:

he lived in Alaska to be near his sister.

He cleaned movie theaters

while she practiced law.

He moved to Wyoming

to prepare breakfasts

for lumberjacks.

In Denver, he saved a homeless woman

who had gone out into the cold

and had fallen into a river. He lifted

her out of the water, and he struggled with her

as she tried to go back into the water.

His time in Denver was spent working

at a cafeteria for the homeless.

He loved to cook. He dreamed

of starting a food truck business

and traveling across the country.

He participated in a naked bike race

in Portland. He experimented

with his sexuality, finding

he didn't like intimacy with men,

but he did enjoy fantasizing

about being a pregnant woman.

He went to Vancouver

with a group of friends.

They dressed up like fairies

and went into a forest

to take shrooms. I had a dream

about him around that time. I imagined

a tree coming out of him, the branches

breaking through his skin.

He was screaming about someone,

he was disturbed about something.

He told me, years later, that

he had a breakdown

in a forest,

while surrounded by people

dressed as fairies—

some kind of Midsummer Night's

Hallucinogenic Dream.

He was screaming

obscenities about his father. He was

punching himself. My friend

ended up in the hospital. His mom,

who had divorced his dad a long time ago,

flew out to take him home to Nebraska.

She had him work at her breakfast diner

until he could get his feet back on the ground.

He related to his mom and sister,

he wanted to be like them and not his father.

He was my roommate after he didn't want to live

with a group of guys anymore.

When he lived with me,

he was processing what happened in his childhood,

and I told him he might find relief if he shared

the details of his story with someone,

whether a therapist

or a friend. I told him I would listen,

but I don't think fate or God or angels

or whatever higher power exists

wanted him to tell his story because

every time

he would start

there was an interruption.

A sudden phone call,

someone walking through the door,

a timer going off,

a tea kettle screaming.

Knives falling in the kitchen.

Odd shadows doubling in size.

I don't think I was supposed to find out

what his father

did to him.

I think it was so horrible

that no matter where my friend went

he was suffering inside his mind.

— — —

My friend loved any display

that embraced the LGBT community.

He wanted to be front and center

on one of those parade floats.

He drew amazing pictures of his friends,

had a deep love of Frisbee, always

had a guitar nearby. He was a worship leader

for a small coffee shop church.

I used to sing with him.

It kills me that we'll never

have another duet on this side of life.

There is a gaping hole inside my soul

and nothing can fill it.

No one can replace that absolutely

idiosyncratic friend.

He loved to salsa dance, he wanted

to adopt children, he wanted

to teach English. I regret

that I never read his work.

We both studied creative writing

in college, but we never shared

our fiction or poetry.

He wanted to dress up like Eleven

from Stranger Things. He wanted

to find a blonde wig and an '80s pink dress

like the one she wore in season 1.

He wanted to dress like her

for a Halloween pub crawl.

— — —

Every year during pride month, I think

of him. I think about the monumental

loss of color the world has experienced

because this person

is no longer in it,

and only a handful of people

got the chance to meet him.

I think about the people who were scared of him,

who wouldn't give him a job, who harassed him,

whatever conditions led to his deteriorating credit

which led him to rent a condemned house.

It caught fire on the day he was going to move out.

It caught fire a half hour or so before he was going

to move out. He was going to move back to Nebraska

to live with his mom and finish school online.

He was only inches away from the door.

He was inches away from escaping.

Firefighters did CPR on him.

The U-Haul was outside the house.

His mom got the call that he wasn't coming home.

— — —

Every time there is a pride parade I think,

what can we do? What can we do

to protect our LGBTQ friends, to make

sure they don't slip through the cracks

to an early grave?

Every once in a while I find and read his online

obituary. I read about his life and remember him.

NOTHING of his queer identity is in the obit.

He was okay with any pronoun. But

maybe one day, his preference for pronouns

would change. There is so much we'll never

know because he died

at only

30 years old.

As a teenager, he'd play his guitar

in the basement

and sing worship songs.

He helped put my spare tire on my car

on a below-freezing-snow-drenched day.

He watched my cats for a couple of weeks

when I was between houses, and he did it

even though he was allergic to cats.

He told me he wanted to look like his sister;

but he also wanted days

to put on flannel and jeans and bandana scarfs

and don a beard and let chest hair pop out the collar,

and he wanted days to wear sundresses

and sandals and nail polish.

I often think about writing a letter

to his mom. She won a settlement

against his landlord, there's a news article

about it. I've wanted to write

her a letter, but I haven't found

the courage.

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

The poem is based on a real person I knew. They died in 2019. Only slight adjustments are made to the story where I'm not certain of the precise details, such as the exact location of the forest where the drug situation took place. It was somewhere in the PNW.

Cover picture by Victoria Pusateri, Pexels.

sad poetry
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About the Creator

Andrea Lawrence

Freelance writer. Undergrad in Digital Film and Mass Media. Master's in English Creative Writing. Spent six years working as a journalist. Owns one dog and two cats.

Reader insights

Nice work

Very well written. Keep up the good work!

Top insights

  1. Heartfelt and relatable

    The story invoked strong personal emotions

  2. Excellent storytelling

    Original narrative & well developed characters

  3. Eye opening

    Niche topic & fresh perspectives

  1. On-point and relevant

    Writing reflected the title & theme

Add your insights

Comments (4)

Sign in to comment
  • Sara Wynn2 years ago

    What a beautiful spirit. Thank you for sharing their story and in such a beautiful way. <3 hugs from my heart to yours.

  • Cyra2 years ago

    Amazing work, good luck! I have entered a submission too: https://vocal.media/poets/after-the-parade-ysfkv0r9l :)

  • This is a beautiful tribute to your friend, and I am sorry for your loss.

  • Amy Christie2 years ago

    This is a touching poem with raw emotions peeping in every line. Thank you for sharing :)

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