Dear Chris

To this day I do not understand how or why you disappeared. Before your passing I had had to cope with the sudden deaths of more than a few friends, but none of them was a writer--like you and I were back in the days when we talked about art and your poetry. 

The moment still pierces me: I walked into broad daylight with a few others, on our way to get coffee, and I tried to hide the shock and grief that were permeating my being. What happened to the poems and essays you spent so much of your heart and life working on--how did you leave them all behind, just like that? To me you lived in those words, and I owed you a response to what you had shown me. 

For the last few days you filled my mind--I think of you every now and then, but this spell has caught me off guard. You must have stopped by when I was vulnerable, when I started chasing the kind of dream that would only trap us in endless solitude. Or did you swing by because you knew it was the moment when I could truly touch your pain, that I would understand? 

Tonight I wept and fell asleep. Time had lapsed and I faced your grief. Since you have been gone, I have made more efforts in keeping up with people, in showing what I hold in my heart to those I wish to keep. Because things pass when we do not hold onto them, just like you did.