I Pray You Were Found Smiling
I Pray You Were Found Smiling by Rebeca Ventura
Even after all these years, your spirit still haunts us.
Even after countless new memories made without you,
there is still that lingering shadow.
And perhaps you have made peace with your life,
or perhaps you are dead somewhere, your body
buried, your livelihood left unclaimed.
I like to think the stranger who found you,
grieved you. The one person who may know
what happened to you. The one person who
saw your last moments, who witnessed your life.
I hope they grieved you, for us who’ve been
grieving you for years, but still haven’t properly mourned.
I hope there are flowers where you are.
I hope birds fly over your body (or your head).
I hope you can see the sunrise from where you are.
I hope the alcohol in your body burned away,
leaving ashes in the empty part of your gut
you so desperately tried to fill up.
I hope you know I’m trying not to forget you,
holding onto every whisper of your life.
Trying, fighting for every second-long memory
I have of you. Trying to remember your face.
Every time I hear your name, I dig my fingernails
into the drunken soil of the earth.
Wondering—hoping—that you once walked here.
That perhaps I can find you again.
I’m ashamed to admit, sometimes my fingers slip.
Sometimes, I fall and don’t think about you for months.
Jasmine didn’t know who you are (were).
She didn’t know my mom had a brother.
She didn’t know her mom had a cousin.
Truthfully, I curse your name.
Grappling with the fact that I was deprived of you.
You didn’t get to see me grow up.
But I know your loss was (is) greater than mine.
So then I pray. To God, to you, I don’t know.
But I fall to my bruised knees.
And I pray that you found peace.
Whether it be in your new life, or in your final moments.
I pray the alcohol cleared, and you found
something to cling onto.
To your sober moment, to hope, to God,
to my mom, to my grandpa, to something.
Hopefully, to yourself.
And I pray that you were found smiling.