John Ormerod

Your name on this wall means you're Dead.

And I can hardly move myself to look at it.
Again.

These years I've contented myself with thinking of you off in some fabulous life, too busy to call. But the rusted metal that outlines the particular combination of letters that point to you; there it is on this wall. Your name. Amid a list that, end to end, would stretch a block in small print. I come across it, surprised by it's expected appearance and instantly I grieve for your absent brittleness beside me.

But all I have of you is this wall, that picture, the memory of this time and that said and a crack in my heart everytime those letters fall together in that particular way.

I'm here and you're Dead.
My grief is in the small print.