in die geheue van die jagter

Today is the anniversary of a close friend's suicide. This poem isn't good. At all. And I know that. It's just the only way I can work through my emotions.

I will always remember you as a warrior.

With your bow and arrows

and your rippling strength.

In South Africa, 

that was enough to call you healthy.

Hoe kan ek nie geweet het nie?

In rolling, greasy waters

we hunted for sharks,

and you looked so alive.

Alive.

Alive.

Lewendig.

With a flash 

and a bang,

teaspoons of metal

brought down a giant

who is stuffed inside my skeleton.

It cracks my ribs.

It hurts to breathe.

And the birthday of your ghost

feels like dying

and being shocked back to life,

volts to the heart

when I can't stop imagining

what your face must have looked like

on your most honest day of living.

And I know it's morbid,

but I can't stop thinking

about your blood

and the stain on the floor.

And I know it's morbid,

but I wonder if you cried

before an army of bodies,

which were all your body

tore my limb from limb.

And I know it's morbid,

but I wish I'd found you.

Because I still can't believe

in the permanence of your absence.

And I've never felt so dirty

about being so honest.

I just don't know how to live a life

when you're not in it.