Where Will I Be When You’re Gone?

I’ve got a year to go
before I’ll have to face
a world without Randal.

I think of the birds.
How will each pitch vary
when your one deaf ear
can no longer interpret sound?

I wonder how you heard it
through a muffled canal.
Perhaps it was beautifully tragic.

You’re father did that to you.
He took the music you cherished
and distorted it in a single blow.
You never laid a hand on me.

I think of the seafood
you cooked me once.
The only meal we’ve shared.

How will it taste when I fry it
on a day when loneliness has led
me to reminisce? It couldn’t possibly
be the same sensation of flavors.

Nothing else comes to mind.
No need to resurrect
thoughts of drugs, mistakes…

You weren’t that person around me.

I never judged and I realize now
that we’re almost like strangers…
You course through my veins and yet
I have no idea who you are.

We don’t have enough memories
for me to hold on to. You can’t
leave without an outlandish bang.
It’s not your style.

When you found out, you said
you’d live without inhibitions.
So what do you say?

All we’ve got is this year.