Part 1

I remember five years ago
I sat cross-legged facing my best friend
as he struggled to spit out words between heaving sobs
I didn't know what was going on or how to comfort him
so I just stared and stared and stared

After a few more attempts he curled up into a ball and just cried
I looked around the room while I rubbed his back and kept pushing his hair out of his face
I tried to focus on the clock's constant tickticktick and the sound of cars rushing by coming in through the open window
when he ran out of tears and energy and I could tell he was falling asleep in my lap
he whispered things under his breath
and all I was able to make out was "cancer" and "I'm sorry".

Fast forward a few months he lost hope in everything
Although the doctors said that there was the possibility of him living a fairly long life
he refused to share his with a disease.
Some nights when our parents had dinner together
we would go up to my room and lie on my bed next to each other
he would tell me about how he didn't want cancer to be what took his life at any point in time
and I counted the dots on the ceiling.

In my twelve year old mind, cancer was a villain
my best friend was the innocent victim
and I was the superhero that was supposed to swoop in and save the day
Except that's not what happened.

The last time I saw the boy that was once the most whole and radiant person around
he had dull eyes, thinning hair and skin that was so pale and so cold it felt like ice had formed just under the surface.
His voice lost all tone, it was flat and lifeless
and he couldn't stay up for too long at a time anymore.

The last time I saw the boy whom I loved in the kind of way that words can't touch
he was sitting on the kitchen floor asking God for forgiveness for every sin he's ever committed
I never knew that coming close to death made people desperate for a chance at some afterlife
even if they denied believing in one their entire lives and
nobody told me that hospitals were more sacred than churches
but when I walked their halls
I heard silence and prayers more beautiful than hymns.

Around the beginning of October his body was shaking like an autumn leaf in the wind
and I could see how clearly he wished he was a skeleton like the dead and dying leaves on the sidewalk
Because even though people carelessly crunch them underneath their feet
they most likely do not mean to break the most beautiful things.

Two weeks in, he cried the same way he did the first night and I knew something was too wrong
but since I was still only just twelve and i did not understand a lot of things
I wasn't able to put the pieces together fast enough
and the next thing i knew
he was slipping through my fingers like sand

The villain was pulling him away with more strength than I could ever muster
In the end he decided that the only way to save himself from the villain fighting to take his life
was to take his own
And I could not save him from the cancer or from himself
Because maybe I was not the superhero he needed.