I'm still here.

Four years have passed.
Nine years have passed.
Fourteen years have passed.
Twenty-Nine years have passed.

All these different "anniversaries"; remembering people I used to touch, used to see, used to hear them laugh and speak. Now they're six feet under, kept alive only by memories.

I constantly find myself fighting off that tinge of fear, wondering who among me might be next. Who do I have here today that could be gone tomorrow?

And really, I'm one of the lucky ones.
I haven't had everyone and everything I know and love taken from me with a quake of the earth or a wave of the ocean.
I haven't been stolen from my home and sold to fill some sick propaganda.
I haven't had my race attacked in attempt to wipe them from the face of the earth.
No one has come into my home or school and opened fire.
My house hasn't been burned to the ground for my beliefs.
No, I have more friends above the ground than below it.

I've never even seen a dead body,
Save for the open caskets at funerals.
Swollen faces of friends dressed in their Sunday best.
Bruises on their neck.
Bruises on their face.
Bruises on their arms.
Depending on their fate.

Who knew that their stories would end at
Seventeen Years,
Nineteen Years,
Twenty-Four Years,
Sixty-One Years?
Who knew that their story would finish that day?
Whatever legacy they've built with the time they were given being all that's left to carry on now that they're gone.
And whose responsibility is it to make sure it doesn't die with them?
What does it really matter if it does?

Please know,
Even though the names are countless,
I still pause to remember you.
I still feel the sting of the loss.
It may fade, but it never goes away.

Please know your life is worth it.

Never Alone. ©

Head in my hands
The pain of the day
leaks from my eyes
onto the floor.
Inhaling the reality
this won't go away easily.
I match my breathing
to the beating of my heart
pumping life into my veins.
Supplying the rhythm
that surges through my being.
I life my head and
take that fist step.
As the weather seems
to have gotten the memo,
I close my eyes,
let it seep into my skin.
The heavens and earth
understand my pain
and cry with me.

©

It's five am in Amsterdam 
Far away from where I am
I close my eyes 
Let out a sigh 
And pretend I'm there again

Here we go again.

Initial writings after tragedy.
More to come, I'm sure.

My Eyes Are Green and Red ©

It wasn't supposed to be you. 
Full of life and promise,
That's who you're supposed to be. 
That's changed.

The drone of cheers and celebration ring in my ears 
But all I think about is you. 
You're gone now. 
And I'm at a loss for words.

It wasn't supposed to be you.

This holiday can never be the same. 
I'm sure in time I'll celebrate again 
But not without remembering 
This day. 
This moment. 
The pain I'm trying to drown until I'm left alone to grieve.

Words can never be a worthy enough tribute 
To who you are--were--and what you mean to me.

I miss you.

©

Grief hit me like a wave 
Swelling up on the typically calm shore.
But I don't know if I can surf today.
Regret sinks in the pit of my stomach 
Your voice echoing in my ears 
Deep breaths, just hold it together 
My lips are numb, this can't be real.

But it is.
And you're gone.

Fireworks lose their luster,
Dull against the dark of night. 
I hear the cheers, but I don't feel them. 
How can I when I just lost a piece of my heart?

Funeral in the Wildflowers. ©

What was the ground like
Before you were in it?
Solid and untouched
Not yet a body pit.
Did it know this was
the fate that lie ahead?
Were there other hopes
than consuming the dead?

Now I’m sitting here
Knowing you’re six feet deep.
The thirsty ground yields
the tears from fallen cheeks.
Maybe after time
Has come and gone from me.
There will sprout flowers
Where my tears used to be.

Then there I will be
Next to you in the ground.
Nothing more than names
On tombstones to be found.

(© Emilee Ayers)

(Written March 6th, 2015, I think)

Sometimes I write things.

I hope you can understand my random bouts of classical music and writing and deep feeling.
Of things I can't explain but that encompass me wholly.
Of illogical mumblings about impossible things that are so real to me.
And now I sound crazy.
And maybe I am.
But I can't imagine me without these things.
It pulses through my veins, begging me to keep living.
To rectify all those who have endured before me.

This isn't just me, but about all those who have lived and died this way.
Who could have given up, but didn't.
Who faced hell and walked or ran or crawled through.
This is about carrying on what they fought so hard for.
This is true humanity.
This is what it means to live.