Recording (Version 2) Poem by Maya Patel

Recording 0: 01
Hey.
This video's meant to go to the afterlife.
I'm not really nervous, I've done this many times before.
Sending out videos each week after you left,
For the past year,
And maybe that's what I'm hear to talk about.
When you were with me,
You heard me out when I had something to say,
Like, Mrs. Gilbert assigning way too much homework.
But now, you're not here anymore.
You're somewhere else, where it's dark, lonely, and confusing.
You can't go through this with me.
When I need you the most, you're not here.

Recording 1: 00
You know, if you ever thought that I wouldn't miss you, you were wrong.
I still pull up our albums with pictures of us everyday,
Of us eating our hearts out at the eighth grade dance because we had nobody to go with,
I still have nobody to go with,
Not even you.
And the picture of us picking our high school electives together,
I'm a freshman in high school now,
And I sit through our wood building class as the teacher calls out your meaningless name aloud from the attendance roster,
And nobody responds.
You know, I'm sick of looking through pictures.
Moments, candid moments leading to another horizon that I can't put my finger through and enter.

Recording 2: 00
Mom saw the video I made for you last week.
She told me to try to stop making them.She told me that you were long gone, and you'd want me to be happy.
Everyone's telling me that you'd want me to be happy.
If you wanted me to be happy, you would've been here.
Everyone just wants me to suck it up and move through life,
But I love you so much that I want to carve your memories over the flesh of my heart.
Why do I want to carve your memories over the flesh of my heart?
Why do you keep running through my head, when you don't even exist anymore?
If you're out there, watching this, you're probably wondering why I'm so angry.
Because I don't want to stay stagnant anymore,
I don't want to feel things I can't feel, like your affection, your presence, our memories, when they're all fake.

Recording 3: 00
I remember the poem we wrote together.
I remember the last two lines. How could I not.
And I will walk through this war with you, my hands woven in yours.
For we're two halves of the same soul.

The last two lines remain on my computer, the letters blurring in my vision,
And I can't get myself to press the delete button.
Because I still remember our poems when I'm going to sleep.
Things get dark out here, without you.
I wonder if I can just... shut myself off and float up there to see you.
Life's just meaningless without you,
and the food I taste is bland,
I see in dun colors,
And I can't be normal anymore, though others want me to be.

Recording 4: 00
I miss when we used to sing together.
None of us could really sing,
But when I sang with you,
I heard beautiful harmonies.
Now when I look at my piano, my hands float over to the sad minor chords,
And though I'm still numb and not over the shock, I don't sing, because I know I won't be able to, if I can't hear you beside me.
It's like I'm impaired of all my abilities.

Recording,5: 00
You probably don't look like what you do, here, in these pictures.
You don't have an identity, your sculpted face is now in pieces,
Your skin is cold,
You're dissipating back into Mother Earth.
But one thing about you, about us, is still here.
Your love.
And with it, I'll create a million little versions of you,
In your baggy sweatshirts and track pants with your curly and bouncy hair
Flying behind you.
It'll never be the same,
But atleast you'll be alive in here.