I Know Dead People Poem by Jonny Brackney

growing up
i never thought i'd
know people
who are dead
it's not something
you think about
until it happens to you
i didn't think one of my closest
friends would shoot himself
alone in his bedroom.
Cody did.
we used to play music
together and talk about
where we would go.
young and full of passion.
i wish so bad
that i would have been
a better friend to him
in his final days.
but we hardly spoke-
another boy,
David,
would come over to swim
and play with toy guns
when we were kids.
i can remember my mother
taking us to the local gas station
one summer day.
she bought us both a candy bar
and rented us a movie
i remember it all...
Caramello is the best
i told him
'i heard milky way is good, i'm getting that'
i was disappointed that he wouldn't try
my favorite candy bar.
(i wonder if he ever ended up trying one?)
we were in the same first grade class.
we rode the same school bus.
he would get off the bus in the middle
of the woods at some junkyard.
i used to wonder why he lived
in a junkyard.
i guess there could be a house in there
somewhere.
i remember one time
they were selling flowers at school
for valentines day.
i bought one to give to my mother.
and i couldn't wait to give it to her.
on the bus ride home David told me
he wanted my flower to give to HIS mom.
he told me he wouldn't be my friend anymore
if i didn't give it to him.
i felt a deep anger toward him, but i gave him
that flower.
i always regretted giving him
MY mother's flower.
years passed.
me and david drifted apart
like young friends often do.
i graduated.
he dropped out i think.
one day somebody told me
that his older brother had
stabbed him to death
while hallucinating on
drugs.

mortified.

i should have never been
mad about that
flower.