When the Rain Came Down

There is something I can never forget,
Despite never having seen.
Some people think the traumatizing thing is the body,
cold, unmoving, and lifeless.
But, even then, There is a kind of hope in seeing them,
laying so peacefully there, as if they might wake up.
Someone who was invited sent me a picture.
Not of the body, which they didn't display,
but rather her stone, which, honestly, was worse.
"Loved by all who knew her" Didn't cover half of who she was,
It didn't say anything about her.
The stone could not contain the whole of her,
Instead choosing to show only the smallest part.
All who met her loved her. It was true.
I had met her, and we had fallen in love.
But, what was between made her who she was.
The way she saw the world was unlike any other,
the way she smiled was unique,
the look in her eyes when she saw the sunrise,
no amount of chiseling could capture that feeling.
And what made me despair was that I was the only one who knew.
She had shown her true self to no on else,
so I was left with a secret. one I couldn't even tell.
I could not tell her parents, her family,
how could I explain to them they didn't know their daughter?
That she wasn't the sullen weeping girl they'd berated and beat,
that she was the brightest and most positive person I'd ever met,
that she could make anything just a little better,
just by smiling. That the look in her eyes...
That she could do more than cry at them,
that she was so much more than they saw.
I wish I could have shown them something,
anything at all, but all I could do was watch as she was forgotten.
They adopted a month later, and never spoke of her again.
As if she had meant nothing to them.
Their new daughter didn't even know she'd had a sister.
I was left to remember her as she was,
I alone who cared that she no longer existed.
I alone, I was alone, so alone without her.
I wept over her, even into the dark of the night.
No one could chisel in stone what We'd felt for each other.
Why a piece of my soul had died with her,
Why I couldn't imagine life without her,
but why I couldn't face her in death.
She'd wanted me to live.
That alone kept me standing in those months,
that alone kept me from falling off of that roof.
She told me to live my life.
I couldn't die and disappoint her.
I remember her small hands,
how I had felt them wrap around mine in the dead of the night,
even though I could no longer see her,
No longer hear her, she stayed with me.
Every night, she would hold my hands,
and tell me to be strong.
I would close my eyes and wait,
wish to hear her voice again,
but nothing came for me.
No hope was left.
I tried to visit her grave one day, 
to show her someone remembered.
But someone was already there.
Her only friend, who, in thinking herself right,
ended up being the one to do her in.
I couldn't face either of them.
I knew it was all my fault.
And so I let myself run away, until the rain stung my eyes,
until I could feel the warmth leak away,
until the rain could fill the emptiness inside me,
until I could forgive.
I would wait,
for when the rain came down.