Remember, on that autumn day?
We sat and sang our thoughts away
on a quiet log with that little crack
and our books piled neatly in a stack.

You said you liked the happy songs –
they helped you ignore all the wrongs
in the world, and in your life,
so that we could forget the knife

That fate had plunged into your throat.
"I can still sing," you used to gloat,
and I thought you always would,
even til the day I stood

Wearing black and bearing pain.
Why does it always have to rain?
Does fate not know a different tune?
Or is it, to our loss, immune?

I sat again on that log today.
You'll always sing, you used to say –
but all I heard was my voice crack,
and only autumn howling back.

Void

Winner of Pass the Poetry 2020 contest