I am standing on the vibrant young grass in front of your fresh gravestone with numb feet and staring with unseeing eyes, hollow ache in my throat, clawing emptiness in the depths of my being. It feels like my insides have been carved out with a dull knife... I can feel it with more than my body, with something more abysmal than even my soul. Even now, I can still see your face smiling wanly and your lying eyes as you tell me you’re okay. Why? I want to scream it, right here in the graveyard, I want to scream it so you can hear, because I have to know the answer even though I never will! Why did you do it? Why did you let yourself become a slave to your mundane impulses? Why aren’t you here anymore to lie to me and say nothing is going to happen to you? Why did you leave me standing here on a cold morning six feet above a thing that is no longer you? And.... this colossal guilt... the crushing weight of what I can’t help but think I should have done. I told you to stop taking it, and you didn’t listen. But did I tell you enough? Did I try as hard as I could have-- as I should have? Is there anything I really could have done to prevent this tragedy? I will never know, and you have left me haunted with the burden of the death which was your own fault, but which I shall forever imagine is mine. Give me clean hands! Give me an assurance that you started and finished this, that you threw away your life and that I could have done nothing to change your mind! Why must I feel as if your blood is on me? ...Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why didn’t I notice sooner? I hate myself because of you. I want to hate you, too, but I can’t. You won’t even let me forget you... I don’t want to forget you. I wish I did. Yet... I want to cherish the times we had together. I don’t want to lose what you were. I want to forget what you became. Will that be possible for me? Where are you today? Are you thinking of me, or do you care about your old life anymore? Perhaps I will know, someday. For today, I can do nothing to soothe the torment in my heart. They say time heals all wounds. I suppose I will find out. I... don’t think I ever really told you... how much I loved you. But if you were still here, I would want you to know... that I still do. So as I relinquish my cramped hold on the rose I brought and set it as gently as I can on your grave, unbidden tears streaming down my wretched face, I whisper a prayer for you. For myself. And I walk away.