You are gone now—

but still your echoes drift
through my life like waves
caressing the shores of my existence.
~
When I move quickly and often
in body and in mind,
the echoes recede into
the deep reaches of my heart.
~
But when I stop and I am
still
I hear them,
beating within me.
~
Your life grew where
mine did too and we
were echoes of each other.
~
My blood was yours that
stilled on that day when I
ran and ran and could not get
to you.
~
You left before I could hold you
once more.
~
You slipped through my fingers
like the echo of a whisper
of the words I did not want
to hear:
“He’s gone.”
~
But where?
Where can one soul go
that could seem so far away
And yet so near as to
touch everything
long after you have left?
~
Your deep voice echoes in
the caverns of my brain.
~
Your firm, strong hugs echo around
the space between my shoulders.
~
Your blue-eyed smile echoes in
the crevices of my memory and
the lines and freckles
of my own face.
~
What space then separates us when
the echoes of you ring through me and
there is no way to tell
where they end
and I begin?

~

Relephant:

Losing a Sibling: Life after Death.

Author: Khara-Jade Warren

Editor: Toby Israel

Image: Unsplash