My Dead Cousin
My dead cousin still lives within the corners of my memory. His chuckling echoes in places I overlooked to shut, appearing up when I slightest anticipate it — on calm evenings, in ancient photographs, within the scent of rain on dusty streets. We were more like brothers than cousins, chasing each other through childhood like we had all the time within the world. But we didn't. Time, heartless and quiet, had other plans.
When he passed on, it felt just like the entirety world delayed, just like the sun overlooked how to sparkle appropriately. The calls came within, the tears taken after, and reality wrapped its heavy arms around us all. I kept considering it was a botch — somebody else's cousin, somebody else's tragedy. But no. It was our own. It was mine.
Despondency may be a strange thing. It isn't uproarious all the time. Some of the time it's the whisper in your ear after you listen a melody you utilized to sing together. In some cases it's the way you maintain a strategic distance from certain lanes since each corner includes a memory holding up like a apparition. Now and then it's the blame of snickering as well difficult, of living on, like you're clearing out them behind a small more each day.
My dead cousin isn't truly gone, not totally. He appears up within the way I fight for bliss, within the way I refuse to squander a minute. He instructed me that cherish doesn't kick the bucket; it fair changes shape. And some place profound interior, we are still running side by side.