Your death hurts different

Your death hurts different from the friends I've lost
to misunderstanding, to unmet expectation, to lust
I feel scraped clean by the butter knife of grief 
a used-up jar searching for closure, something to fill 
all the echo and past tense inside 
Maybe this is what they call resignation, this kind of 
loose-limbed falling 
But the living haunts me like acid aftertaste
a bite mark that won't stop bloodying my tongue
every word betrays the drowning I'm doing
How do I mourn you well when I'm still regretting 
all the funerals I will not attend for people who I love 
​and love me not?

Kristine Cinate