I cradle you in my arms, a terrible weight, no longer hearing the gunfire, the shots that ring out throughout the office, with its maze of cubicles and down-turned faces, the shots that leave a high-pitched screeching in my ears. The top of your head is sheared off and your eyes are open, bloodshot and blue, the last vestiges of surprise slowly slackening from your face. Visions of us walking in the streets lit up by artificial lights, as you explained to me the difference between crickets and cicadas, and that time I stumbled into an open manhole and you grabbed my hands—like I grip yours now, slick with blood—and helped me out, laughing, and how I never told you that I loved you so here it is now: I love you, I love you, I love you with all of my being, I will never let you go. Footsteps approach, slowly, echoing, towards us and I will never let you go. 

The long day slowly faded into dusky twilight, darkness deepening as night settled over the lonely mound where he lay. The little brown dog remained where he'd been told to stay, with only his ragged stuffed toy and favorite blanket for company. He wondered where his master had gone, and why he had left him here alone in this place so far away from home. Huffing sadly, he laid his head on his paws, ears up, hopeful, waiting anxiously to pick up the welcome sound of approaching footsteps and the call of a beloved voice. The evening was restless, and as dawn's light broke on the horizon, it became apparent that there would be no return from the master. The poor dog had been trained well, his loyalty unwavering, and he would not move from his spot, still believing that he needed to show his obedience the best he could so that he would be able to go home.

Dear God,

     I can’t tell my grandson all about you,

          while bouncing him on my knee,

               so will you please lift him up into your lap,

                    and tell him a little about me?

                         Signed,

                              a lonely grandpa.

(for my Trip - Grandpa loves you little boy - forever...)    

He was an angel first; the beautiful morningstar whose wings were iridescent with the light of galaxies. Then a small mistake and he watched his beloved wings burn black as charred feathers fell and all that remained of his heart were two crimson scars, eternally searing on his back. The flesh never healed and the pain never stopped for he was not a fallen angel. To fall he'd have to land but not even the earth would catch him for angels don't get forgiveness and they never land: they fly or fall. So for eternity he was trapped in the fire that had destroyed the most beautiful part of him, hiding behind a glamour of a demon and only once every day, between night and morning did the mask fall to reveal golden eyes that used to reflect the dawn and pure white hair, burnt at the tips. This was the monster they feared, a dove without wings; caged and burning for eternity because he asked for the freedom to question.

I am driving my son to see his first baseball game, but there is traffic and we are already late, and so we are listening to the pre-game show on the radio and my son is sitting beside me in the front seat looking out the window and he is quiet, listening; now the voice on the radio stops talking and the national anthem begins to play, and instantly in my head I am back in time, to the first grade, where we are learning the words to the star-spangled banner and I am called out of class and told my mother is here to pick me up and take me home, and we are in the car but the radio is off and she is telling me there has been an accident; that my father was up on the ladder cleaning the gutter and he fell and landed on the rake that had been left points up on the lawn below and a coldness spreads through me as I learn my father is only human.

He has needed a hair cut for weeks, I just kept pushing it out of his eyes,His pretty green eyes.

He was too sick to take out for a hair cut, so I pushed the blonde locks back from my little mans face, His sweet little face.

Now his big day is here and he needs a hair cut, but who wants to cut a dead boys hair. So I push it back one more time. I kiss his precious face one last time and they close the casket.

As the Simulife cable clicked into his spinal socket, Frank knew this would be the last time that his surroundings would be real; the timer was set to the max amount--a year--and he knew, by then, his illness would take him. In his Simulife, he hadn't slept through his youth trying to stall the pain of a broken heart, consumed by his depression, he hadn't attempted to lose himself in the drugs or eat his sorrows away. His parents had not separated from the stress of their failure to raise him, his father had not overdosed in devastation. No, Frank was successful, a multi-millionaire CEO, owner of his own publishing company, and he was in love, but, more importantly, he was loved back. As he laid back in the capsule, the machine whirring softly, the software finishing its loading, his final thought was on his mother. She would miss him, and he regretted that more than anything, but reality was not a place he could bear to live in anymore.

She guessed she just wasn't meant for motherhood. Three miscarriages and now, just today, her second stillborn child. What was it about her womb that refused to bring forth new life? Why was she not allowed the only dream she'd ever had? Just as her womb had wept tears of red many times, Elizabeth began to weep, tears of blue mixed with regret.

Death rode in on a river red blazing heated paths from my feet to my head. 

I wake to the screaming sound of mother as my body and heart start to seize.

Her ear to my chest listening for any life that's still left.

Nothing knocking back sorry mother its time to compress.

A kiss on the forehead follow s with a sad request, please don't go my son just rest.

A mother forced to give life a second time with love refusing to let a son die.

I'm so glad you remembered grandpa until the day you died. Had you looked at him with that happy blank stare that you used for so many of your children and grandchildren, the one that said, "Hi, do I know you?", his heart would have shattered. But thankfully your marriage, a blessed 56 years(minus one day), was so strong that you remembered him. He held your hand as your dementia claimed the rest of us. Grandpa was the one light that shone bright in your world. You managed to hang on up until you had a chance to renew your wedding vows, and I think you were waiting for that day. I am sure you knew the importance of it; what it meant to him. You slipped away peacefully, grandpa by your side. Thank you grandma for remembering him.