Take My Hand, David Berman

Planes on the downtown skyline is a sight to see for some
It ought to make a few reputations in the cult of number one

The church organs bellow out of the speakers in the living room, playing music from my phone. 
I empty out a little more coke on to the counter in the kitchen. 

“What the hell is this shit” a voice yells from outside of the room I’m in, commenting on the song.
It’s hard to tell who that voice belongs to, lost and raspy voices always show up to any good time. 

I can see Jeremy through the window outside, laughing as he cuts off the woman he is speaking to. They stand together closely, smoking cigarettes and keeping each other warm.
I pause before doing the line, staring at them staring at each other. I have no one to stare at like that tonight. The song continues.

While these seconds turn these minutes into hours of the day
All these doubles drive the dollars and the light of day away

I turn around and look at the other people who are in the living room. I finish my line and walk over to my phone. 

Someone stands next to me as I scroll through my phone and sip my beer. I offer him a drink and he accepts. “I’m drinking the Buds in the bottom drawer,” I tell him. 
I try to think of something else to say to him when he returns, but he doesn’t come back. I put my phone down and walk away, looking for a conversation to join. 

I wrote a letter to a wildflower
On a classic nitrogen afternoon

“Hey, do you mind if I grab a bump off you? I’ll give you a cigarette.” She is hot and I say yes but she leaves right away too.

And they never seem to turn you up loud
There are a lot of chatterboxes in this crowd

Conversations occur around me and my idleness continues to make me uncomfortable. They don’t want me here. I don’t know anyone. So I look at my phone to seem busy, to seem wanted. 

I scroll through the feed and his picture pops up once, twice, three times. I immediately shut it off knowing that repetition on any feed means tribute. And tribute online means that someone is dead. 

I tried to remind myself that we didn’t really know each other, we were just online friends. Our history is not palpable and could be erased with the push of a button. I want to cry but I can’t. I should have been home talking to him. I look around for someone to talk to but no one is receptive.

Maybe it’s not real.

We met when he liked my photo. He messaged me and I messaged him back. Our tango continued. We talked about everything. He had an alcoholic mother and I had an alcoholic father. Both disappeared from our lives at a young age. We had friends who killed themselves intentionally and unintentionally.

This went on for years until he finally told me that he was coming to my city. In a few months he was  to stay with me and my roommates in a spare room. We talked about skating the hills outside of city limits, shrooming in mountains, and cooking big dinners. But none of that would happen now. Will my sorrow ever be recognized if we never met? 

I look at my phone and read a caption to one of the photos that someone shared. Suicide. 

I walk outside onto the deck, begging for a smoke. My stomach pulsating and my lungs burning through more oxygen that I can inhale. The fact that we never physically met pokes at me relentlessly. My lips quiver and hand shake. I can’t light the cigarette. 

I can still hear the song playing. 

You’re over in the corner breaking down
They always seem to keep you way down low
The people in this town don’t want to know

He can’t be dead. He didn’t ask me. Who will stay in the spare room?