A Good Man is Dead.

A good man is dead. And it feels like there should be some mechanism by which I can scream that at the sky loud enough to tear the universe apart. A good man is dead and everything should stop now. No jokes should be told, no flowers should bloom, no wine drunk except in the pursuit of some respite from the aching sore of its unfairness.

A good man is dead and the world should shut the fuck up and be mute for a while. Colours should bleach to bone. Gulls should drop out of the sky, stopped in flight.

A good man is dead and, for long minutes, I have forgotten how to breathe. I’ve forgotten how to cry; the misery that should rise is trapped somewhere in my skull, it’s taken a wrong turn and can’t find its way to my tear ducts. I’ve resorted to typing nonsense on a screen for fear that if I stop, I will break apart in the stagnant clutch of the moment.

A good man is dead and I am not. A man with beautiful children and a beautiful wife and a life worth living five times over. While I am older, smoke thirty cigarettes a day and think walking is exercise. He loved life and I do not. He lived in his skin and I ignore it. He was kind and smart and the loyalest of friends. How is it that his goodness did not buy him a quiet death in old age? When I have squandered mine?

It happens every day; this obcene imbalance. A good man is dead.