I have seen Death.

It is NOTHING like what you see on TV,
Or in movies,
Or in video games.

There is no sense of detachment,
no sense of “It doesn’t really matter”.
There is only a husk.

An empty husk that was a person.
It was someone who had hopes and dreams.
They loved.
They hated.
And they’re just gone.

Do you ever feel that when you “see” death?
Do you ever wonder,
“Who were they?”

Now that I have faced it,
I realize something.

Those people had only one purpose in life.
To “die”

But still, I can’t help but to wonder,
Who could they have been.

Every time I see someone “die”,
I mourn.
Their fictional lives something
That might represent the hopes and dreams
of someone disappearing into the night sky.

I don’t watch TV anymore.
There is so much death, that whenever I turn on the TV,
I can’t help but to feel depressed.

I have faced death.
And it has scared and scarred me.
Countless times I have asked myself,
“Is this life really worth living?”
And even when I answered no,
The bullies and hate towards what I am,
A kid who only wants to play his music and love,
Overwhelming me,
I couldn’t go through with it because
I was scared of Death
The sense of finality,
Not knowing what lies beyond.

It scares me.

So, I moved through life.
Making the motions,
A smile as fake as a Barbie’s body.
Feeling stretched beyond repair,
But somehow surviving.

It made me stronger,
It made me who I am.
A fat band geek.
But a fat kid who is proud of what he’s become.

You may make fun of me for being in band,
Playing a “fat kid” instrument like the tuba,
But until you have felt the hate and pain,
That I have been forced to live with since,
I was in 3rd grade,
Denied by my first love,

You don’t have the right to tell me how to live.
Let me LIVE my own life.
My life is something that
I control.

Death scares me.
I will face it peacefully one day.

But until that day,
I will remember back to that August day,
My Grandmother’s funeral,
And thank her for even in death,
Helping me to find a desire to live
That otherwise would have been extinguished.

Making me,
An empty husk.