To Richard, Almost 4 Years On

Dear Richard,

I saw the river today, flat and lonely, as if caught in some 50 pence postcard you could buy at any shop along the dock. But these are not my memories of you; the dock, the water, the perennial boats looking out past the mersey, past the sea, onto some untold destination, some unmakeable journey.

I remember your shuddering steps, that orange grasped so carefully in your hand. Or your bleeding chin, breath becoming visible on the frosty air. Or your dad, red with indignity, voice breaking against the motorcyclist, us giggling in the backseat.

The terraced Kirkdale streets lining our walks to and from school. Our hands- you, I, Jacob, Dylan, Joe, Adam- in one mess of excitable motion, ripples of laughter cartwheeling out across the playground. The letters we wrote to each other, soaking in our adolescent loneliness.

I cried in the classroom after I moved away, speaking your name like a prayer, holding the letters like something fragile and precious.

What did it mean to die? There was no such word in our vocabulary. Still, the river as you swayed above it, rising like one of your dozen dogs to kiss at your face. And you, falling endlessly down to meet it.

I wonder, did you remember my face amongst the many of your life? Did you see me, blood in my hair, crying against the wall?

I cried in the shower when I heard and my mother burst into the room terrified by the noise I was making but I was gurgling your name, I was seeing your face.

Now when I think of you I try not to remember your father’s gentle hand on the coffin, or your mother moaning your name in the front row, or the walk home through those terraced Kirkdale streets, no intention of going anywhere. As the streets ran down, out past the dock road, out past the city centre, past the Albert Dock.

I saw the river today and I realised how big each of us are, each life, each memory, each name, spoken into nothing and everything at once, still not knowing what it means to die.

I love you, Richard,

Sean