another flashback

A friends middle name


Something for Alice 09/03/2008

Alice is gone
And I don't know what to do
My words fall short of description
Fading away into blurry memory
Ever smaller and farther away.

I wish I could have known her better
And I wish I had tried a lot harder
Alice sold herself too cheaply
When I should have paid the price.

So sad and alone
Misunderstood and ignored
In the stillness of long forgotten summers
Walking to the library to read and dream.

Alice knew what it felt like
To be sad and accept it
Locked inside where no one knew
A secret life of wordless dreams.

Alice grew up
And Alice gave away
Always making someone happy
Because that was all she knew.

As much as I wish
I had only scratched the surface
Selfishly assuming
There was no need try.

Alice had to work and struggle
And learned to smile all the way
Doing her best at whatever was there
Pretending that she didn’t matter
And nothing ever hurt.

Alice loved God
And prayed in sweet silence
Taking the risks of faith
Long before I knew her.

She learned to cope and save
So that she never needed anyone
While I didn’t have to worry
Because I knew she always would.

Alice gave up her name
But she gave me more than that
The knowledge of God’s love
And all the possibilities of life.

If I had cared to notice
I would have seen her disappearing
Slowly fading away
Until there was nothing left.

I wish I could tell Alice
How much I loved her
Back to the beginning
And be a different man.

But man doesn’t have the luxury
Of more than a single try
Minutes, hours, and days
Adding up in tens of thousands
And before we know it
We curl up and die.

Sometimes the best intentions
Don’t translate into action
And that was what she needed
When I was busy daydreaming
And didn't seem to care.

There is something I would like to tell her
And that is the prayer she never knew
That every day on my knees I prayed
At the picture I loved the most.

It was on my desk
And when every one was gone
On my knees for my family
The ones I loved so dearly

I put the picture away
But the feelings remain
Along with the memories
That make me hate myself.

Today is her birthday
A day I shall never forget
In my blood
And in my soul
Something I cannot lose
And will never deny.

It has been so long my sweet Alice
I knew you for such a brief moment in time
Nineteen years ago December
And we were so very young
Both of us clinging to the familiar
When we had only just begun.

It was such a short fraction of time
But now I think of it often
Before you started losing yourself
In so many small degrees.

Alice I am sorry
And I know this is long overdue
That I wasted way too much time
That you were really trying to help
And I never stopped to listen.

I knew you were a treasure
Full of wit, intelligence and style
But I should have learned more
And understood what you needed.

Alice it took me a long time to know
And now it’s far too late
Forgive me for my emotions
Because the words are pinched with pain
Like shards of glass
Cutting me from the inside out
And I can’t stop the bleeding.

I have wept for six hundred nights
For a love I cannot retrieve
Thinking I had forever
And let you wither away.

In the end all this will pass away
In perfect peace at long last
And I shall meet Alice again
My head held high and smiling
And we will all be forgiven

And there shall be no anger
But only love shall permeate our souls
In the end just like the beginning
Exactly how he wanted us al