I'm sorry this world became so unsafe,
that you are now in an indefinite sleep,
that by evil you were strafed,
that your family and friends will weep and weep.

You always put a smile on your family's face,
no matter how sad each one of them was,
You are someone they can never replace,
the laughter lines on their faces? You were the cause.

The day that you were shot and slipped away,
Your mum broke down completely and was in absolute shock.
Your parents wept and thought of you every minute of the day,
you didn't deserve this end - they wish they could turn back the clock.

You should have been getting married,
but now you are in Heaven above.
Now in a casket you shall be carried
and they will cry for you again and release a dove.

I promise now your spirit is free,
and I promise that you won't really be gone
as you will live on inside of your family,
and for your justice they will keep fighting on.

My voice is cracked from crying
Who then will sing your dirge
It's hard to speak or say goodbye
Or stop my hands from trembling

Tears roll down as we shared the grace
I try to sing but start to cry
Now I stare at a soulless face
Hoping that somehow 'tis all a lie

Dressed in white, your arms by your side
The door is closed as you take a ride
To an Isle that lies beyond the road
A road there is with no return
A place that someday even I will follow

While I can't tell you how I feel
At least I can write you a song
That those who hear ur Epicedium
Will cry for then they know
An angel had left for home

Nothing serves to fumble with your heartstrings
quite so well as a ceremony of the dead
(and nearly so)
where a tall man,
with black tie draped across broken heart,
wrestled with his voice;
in order not to display
what we are so practiced at hiding.

Some people cry because of two emotions:
Happiness and sadness

Happy because their loved one finally goes to heaven,
Sad because they are still in hell.

I went to the hospital to see him because they told the family that he would soon pass but he was holding on for something.
He was my moms father, my grandad.
All I saw was him lying there on the hospital bed basically dead. He was suffering so much to just be able to breathe.
I watched his chest beating but I knew the machines beside the bed were making him breathe.
I know he wanted to let go.
He couldn't speak, nor see.
I held his head in my hands and said goodbye and kissed his forehead.
We left the hospital.
The next morning we got a call saying he died in his sleep last night.
I couldn't even bring the tears to my eyes.
It was just shock.
I saw his only the night before, still alive but barely.
It's Wednesday morning and the funeral is at two.
I'm wearing this ugly black dress that's too long for my liking but we have to be appropriate because "that's what he would want"
He was a horrible man, he cut me and my family out of his life ten years ago, wanting nothing to do with us.
He wouldn't even recognize me now.
It was an open casket and he looked like a stuffed doll.
A wedding ring on his finger and a nice suit and tie around his body.
I was waiting for him to wake up, saying that he wasn't really dead, the suffering just magically stopped.
I rest my hand on his shoulder and his body was so cold I could feel the ice stretch through my arms making my body shiver.
They led us through a dark room and told us to take our seats.
The pastor only talked about God when my grandad wasn't even a Christian man.
Asking us to raise our hands if we had excepted Jesus Christ into our hearts and all these hands were raised in the air except mine.
I felt his eyes stare me down so I put my head down staring at the tile my black heels were standing on.
The floor was caving in and it was hard to breathe.
There was an American flag resting on his casket.
I realized that this funeral wasn't for the dead, it was for the people who were still alive.
It wasn't a celebration for the man laying in the casket.
It was a gathering for people to whisper and judge.

Wallowing in grief, they said.
Clad in black, face wet--
Distant, drowning eyes burning
Silver
Hands clasped, knuckles snow
White 
Rose; thornless, flawless

Too fragile, they said.
Lips pulled down, face blotched, splotches of 
Crimson red 
Stained shards of glass
Crystal clear mind, jagged 
Edges
Of a window (pain) 

Broken, they said.
Shivering shoulders, silent spells
But--
But those eyes. Those
Shining depths, they bore love in its
Purest 
Form, held her together like glue. 

Broken, they said. 
Well, she'll live to smile another day.