This is raw emotion
Barely processed reflexive emotion
Feelings swimming amidst violent cliffs
Lurching in divergent directions
Seeking cathartic expression
Seeking connection
We loved you
We loved you fiercely
If only you could have felt the joy of you
The humility and vulnerability
The visceral presence of connection
Ultimately there is no logic
We cannot know your final feelings
We cannot see the turbulent emotions or selective amnesia
Whatever demonic force took you back out
The sea of painful truths and inner torment
But we can mourn and feel
We keep you alive in our hearts
We commit to supporting one another in grief and healing
To deepening the roots of our recovery
While we remember
Eviscerated shards of you remain
No longer a coherent dialectic
But yet a faint approximation of life after death
Your pain and your awareness have left us
But life in all its colors ensues
The loving core of your spirit lives on in all who nurture your memory
You still flow in the interstitial waters of our community
I deepen my resolve to fight for each soul seeking this path of recovery
To share love as fiercely as I wish I could have shared with you
Your spirit and your smile were electric
Your compassion contagious
This night I have struggled to sleep
Churning through so much viscous emotion
With my eyes closed i had a vision
I can almost swear that I saw your face
And I still hear your voice
That warm baritone voice
Reading from the literature
Sharing from the heart
Saying I love you
So we knew you meant it
I am brutally reminded that this work of recovery is about survival
This is a life and death war over millions of souls
We are thinly clad travelers doing battle with a hurricane
Churning amidst turbulent waters
An ocean that can either drown us or become our salvation
Offering sustenance and pouring libations
We can make meaning of tragedy
Making our webs of connection wider and stronger
Practicing searching and fearless honesty
Asking the tough questions and sharing our most integral insights
I celebrate that I shared this path with you
I will remember
This is a promise
We will live on and remember
We will give water to seeds in your memory
You are gone and you are still loved
We will remember you
Moving through this complexity and pain
Your beautiful spirit leaving us far too soon
Lost to turbulent riptides of emotional tragedy
I pour libations in your memory
Letting your spirit move through the spirits I release
You are lost to the riptides of addiction
But your soul still permeates the vital waters of our hearts
–BYPO PHOENIX c)2023
