Stained.

It's quiet without you around. It's like the whole world went blank and gray, every word suddenly becoming a whisper. There's no one to poke around in my basement, no lopsided kisses, no rants about tattoos. Things seem blank and unreal, so hard to believe. We move around listlessly because there's a chunk missing from our life. There's something gone that just can't be replaced.

Three months and I thought the wound might have healed; maybe the constriction in my throat would loosen and fade. It doesn't. It grows and expands with each swallow or breath I inhale. My body feels tired and achy, and I'm unsure where to go. I haven't left my house; I count the bloodstains on the carpet. They're minimal, like tiny teardrops. Your head's outline is there, too, right next to the hand print. It should have been me; it should have been my body on the floor.

You were so brave. I don't think I could have seen a braver death. I tried to save you, wanted to fight them. But senseless crime on a street corner holds no boundaries, no sense of a breaking boy. It took all my strength to get you back into the house, grab Mikey, and have Ray call the cops. And we could only watch as you bled, could only cry soundlessly at the choked noises coming from your throat. And I kissed you with fear, with a crushed backbone because you didn't die fucking spineless. You just died for nothing, no reason behind the actions but want for blood. But you held my hand and went out anyways, leaving me in a way I can't quite describe. And I could hear Bob punching a wall, could feel the life being sucked out of the room. But mostly, I could see your face, pretty in its bright red bloodbath.

I try to draw, paint, to write. Hell, I even try to sing songs that I used to give you lullabies. But you're not here to hold at night; no 'more, please' escapes your lips. You were always the life of the party, a movement, and a declaration. Now there aren't any of these things; we stare at each other and feel the gray of it all. And I feel bitter and tired. It seeps through my bones, and I can't get it out; I'm filled with lead and leaking batteries.

“You've got to go out, honey.” I hear my mom say, and I ignore the worried looks exchanged between herself and my dad whenever Mikey and I mention something about you. I get so angry sometimes, so mad at you for it happening. But then I hate myself twice as much after I feel that way. It wasn't your fault; just masked hoodlums performing random acts on the already crime-ridden streets of New Jersey. To the cops, you were a sad statistic. But you will never be another number to me; you'll never be a thought in the back of my mind.

But sometimes, I wish you were.

We go to the mall, and I brush my overgrown, unwashed hair from my eyes and try not to think of the last time we came here. When you and I rode the indoor carousel and tried to shoplift from Hot Topic, we didn't because Ray had just gotten the job there. And when we shared ice cream in the food court, just a couple was as average as everyone else. We held hands, and yours were so warm against mine, so alive. It suddenly made being gay so easy with you. Because we were just us. And now I'm just nothing.

This place seems empty and yet so suffocating, somewhere for the time to pass achingly. For lonely people to spend money on necessities, to find love in materialistic creatures. We pass by a few different stores and leave after twenty minutes – the vagueness of the place seems too oppressing, and I can't even be a brother enough to tell Mikey to have fun. I just don't have the energy. I keep thinking I see your face down every escalator and around every corner. You're not there, though, although I try so hard to pretend. We throw change in the wishing fountain, and I wish I could see your face. I wish for a car crash when I'm driving alone.

When I get home, I take your sweatshirt out of the closet. It's mine, but you wore the hell out of it, honestly. I place my face against it and inhale the sunshine that was you, the bubbly boy everyone loved that tasted like bubblegum and cigarettes. The one who made me smile when I thought I couldn't make it, who cleaned up my vomit during my darkest points. I put it next to the bed and feel the memories eat at me, nibbling on my heartstrings and devouring my insides. And I don't know how I'll make it through the day, don't know how I'll make it through another night of touching myself to your face and then realizing that it might be necrophilia—then hating myself even more. Then wanting to cry but not having the vitality to, staring listlessly into the quietude of air.

The day strains against my window, weak rays peeking through the tiny slits of basement light. I watch its bloody horizon fade and think of all the sunsets you used to make me watch and the way we'd fall asleep right after, even when the analog clock read five-thirty in the afternoon. And you'd wake me up for the sunrise, making me sing to you all the hopes I didn't dare breathe out loud. It was those moments I lived for, tasting your skin on mine. Your quiet 'I love you’ hanging around in the hazy morning air.

I am being choked on old memories; I always said you’d be the death of me. Only back then, I said it with adoration. Now, it’s tinged by a grim and crimson truth.

You’re going to be the death of me, even after your life.

But life has to go on, and the world starts up again. People start returning to school; I watched Mikey pack up for college, and he left the blackness of the basement I find myself trapped inside of. Nobody seems to notice you're gone to the extent that I do, making the world seem scary and vast. But I don't want to leave the memory; your memory; our memory. I want to rest in it forever in peace. Ray goes to his junior year at Mercy, and Bob joined Thrice on tour right after -- he lost his best friend and bandmate; I’m sure you would have done the same. Even your mom found equilibrium, and I feel like I'm the only one still holding on, still bleeding from a gaping, unbearable chest wound.

I'm supposed to get a job at this point, I heard DC comics was looking for me, but I'm an empty artist, incapable of drawing a single line in ink. It makes me think of your ink, the secret tattoos you got with a fake ID. It was a miracle they believed you because you look so young to me. And now I curse your last tattoo as if it was a sick foreshadowing to the fateful last night you breathed air; I wish I were a ghost. And now you are, haunting my dreams every time I try to sleep.

My hair is matted as I lay in bed, tracing the outline of where your body used to be. This basement is my hell, and there's no vacancy. I take the gun in my left hand and feel it's weight, its hard metallic pressed against my flesh. I was supposed to be bringing a message, but I simply can't seem to fight any longer. We were supposed to fight it to the end, but your end reached all too soon. My body tenses as I feel the gun's coolness on my temple, and then I relax, thinking of your pretty face with a backdrop of blood clots. Pulling the trigger, I wonder if there's anyone who can bother to hear it, to see this forgotten corpse lying limp on the bed.

Because I just can't live for late dawns and early sunsets anymore.