Once, We Lived | Poetry Collection Completed

Meningitis

There was a boy I knew once.
I had forgotten.
Maybe it's the night bringing it back.
I didn't know him that well.
But I feel like the only one who's remembering.
One day, he was smiling.
Another, he was fatigued.
He said his head hurt.
I told him he should go home and rest.
He laughed it off.
He died the next day.
His mother refused to take him off the ventilator.
His father wouldn't speak for months.
His brother, his best friend, wouldn't eat.
In some sick idea,
they matched:
the skeleton in the suit
and
the skeleton in the casket.