There Is One Loss That Will Always Hurt
In Memory of a Friend
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.
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.
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Reader insights
Nice work
Very well written. Keep up the good work!
Top insights
Heartfelt and relatable
The story invoked strong personal emotions
Excellent storytelling
Original narrative & well developed characters
Eye opening
Niche topic & fresh perspectives
On-point and relevant
Writing reflected the title & theme
Comments (4)
What a beautiful spirit. Thank you for sharing their story and in such a beautiful way. <3 hugs from my heart to yours.
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.
This is a touching poem with raw emotions peeping in every line. Thank you for sharing :)