Warning

This post contains themes of suicide, homicide, and grief. One’s ability to seek mental health care should not be linked to health insurance. Work in your community to dismantle the stigma against seeking mental healthcare, particularly for men.

Warning

It wasn’t real until I arrived at the funeral home

and your casket was closed.

All of the stories were true from the news.

You had done this to her and to yourself

and I cannot mourn you in the open

because who could love a murderer,

except,

I do.

You are the same man who, when I realized the peril

of my own situation, linked arms with my other new friend

and the forest

then gave me the confidence to do something about it.

The news did not report how, the six months before your actions

ripped a hole in 1,000 families,

you tried to save yourself

(which would have saved her)

through treatment and how

lack of insurance and disposable income

turned you away. How you descended then

into drink and darkness and how

it didn’t occur to us until it was far too late

that you

owned

a

gun.

The news didn’t report it because it doesn’t excuse you.

Forever I will hold the bright, jeweled berries of your friendship

and

the rotten, inexcusable truth of your end

in the same blue bowl.

I will not dishonor her

by pretending you

never happened.