Second Hand Death

Second Hand Death:

I've heard it whispered,

I've heard it said aloud,

I've heard it passed around

a thousand times.

I've heard it in my mind,

Dissolving all sense of reality.

I've heard it repeatedly,

Echoing hollowly.

The subject ceased existence.

It hurt me, every time I heard it.

It hurt me more, when I feigned, relaxed.

Gut wrenching pangs, not of grief nor anger.

Hurt me every time I remember

That sweet face that now sleeps tranquil

But my pain is second hand

--it doesn't belong to me--

It's owner and bearer

Is hurt more than I can imagine,

I have tried and failed to imagine, though.

How meaningless and hollow it is 

even when my grief is just half real;

that I am somewhere between being affected and affectation:

Second hand you say so well.

I do wish this pain had never come,

Not to the bearer, nor to the sharer.

(And it may it not happen to the sharer in actuality).

Coward, I am, who cannot face the fact

Of death, all pervasive intruder

into normalcy.

Though I grieve as the one no more

was one of my own.

Nothing could compare to the grief of the one

Who grieves because it was one's own

My grief is second-hand as is the death.