They hold hands to grieve me together.

I’m not gone yet. 

They’re watching. I’m slowly dying. 

All victims of the bystander effect. 

Maybe I’ll mean something more to somebody someday. 

Can I wait for someday? 

When will it be too late?

I can hear the echoes from the hall: 

“She was so young,”  

“So much potential,” 

“So much beauty,”

“She will be missed.”

They forget now all the trouble I am. 

Or I was? Or I will have been? 

All the sad sighs. 

Wishing I could get better.

Willing me to get better.  

Feel better, be better. 

Feel happy, be happy. 

Why can’t I be happy? 

I’m sorry I can’t be happy. 

I can’t write a happy song. 

My pillows lay wrinkled and tear stained. 

As I ignore the notifications screaming at me. 

Why do they find myself in my room writing eulogies to a living girl? 

Funeral song come into the queue,

And I remember, I too now am singing at a funeral tomorrow. 

To a girl a year younger than me. 

I forget now any trouble she was. 

My room fills with sad sighs.

I think about how young she was, her potential, her beauty;

Oh, how she will be missed. 

I know now, I have to get better. 

Feel better. 

Stay better. 

Just stay alive. 

I don’t want someone else to have to write a eulogy to a girl.