young

the thing about loss is that sometimes

you don't even notice it's there.

i was nine or eight when my aunt passed.

she quietly hung herself in a motel room.

it would have taken ages for them to find her

if it hadn't been for the wailing of her newborn daughter.

but none of this meant anything to me, then.

i was more concerned about pokemon.

i didn't know anything beyond the fact

that she was gone, and couldn't come back.

my mom, on the other hand

wept, and wept, and wept.

for weeks it seemed to last, the crying from her

room seemed to crash along the walls

and filled our house with nothing but sorrow.

for weeks and weeks and weeks,

because she couldn't go to the funeral.

because she wasn't there for her.

although this didn't register with me at the time.

i only knew my mom was sad and i'm

rather oblivious at eight or nine.

i wish i had known what it meant for my aunt to die.

maybe then i'd know to cry.