Communication 34

last letter to charlotte

Dear Charlotte

There was something that you never knew, 

that with each year that passed

I’d write a letter to you

I believe that you’ll be coming home soon

and still walk past your house to see

if there’s a light shining from your bedroom,

there’s so much I don’t want to share

and yet constant reminders of you everywhere,

I find myself hanging around the town

just to see if you’re around,

half expecting to see you aimlessly wandering,

or perched on a bench,

I can’t believe our names are still scratched

on the fence,

down by the school,

preserved in time, reading

“Charlotte 4 Paul”

These days I find myself thinking too much

and turning the pages back,

I still remember those summer evenings

when we would sit by the abandoned railway track

drinking cheap beer and talking

about the little of life we’d had,

there was always this low sun that made you

feel like life had just begun,

we really thought we knew it all,

still, with very little between us

you’d always joke about remembering me

“when I was rich and famous”

so from that day on a friendship was won

little did I know you’d be the first of us

to live fast and die young.

I doubt it will come as any surprise 

when I tell you that I have decided to leave

I changed a long time ago,

it just took time for me to realise

that change can take a while to show,

year in and year out these same old roads

continue to take new lives,

and I take the same old steps past where you lie,

they’ve put you overlooking the green

I hope that was ok,

I told them that was the place

you’d probably prefer to stay. 

I think you can tell that everyone wishes you well

and even though few now talk about you,

I know in the quiet times

you’re rarely far from people’s minds,

the year is now 2008, so much has changed,

time has come and gone

and there are still so many things that stop

me from moving on,

life as a whole is far from what I expected

most of my hopes and dreams have been neglected

and replaced with trying to scratch a living,

Charlotte you are not missing much

the world around us is very unforgiving.

This will be the last letter I write to you 

I think it’s probably best,

it’s about time I put you to rest

I have a photo of you that I will keep with me,

it’s the one I took that sunny afternoon,

just after school,

it was always so hard to take a picture

without you complaining that "you never look cool"

this one especially, I remember it well,

occasionally friends catch a glimpse of it

and ask of you, there’s not much to tell,

“Charlotte was a girl I knew”

she was in a bad accident,

it’s hard to accept

but the car was driving too fast

she broke her neck

died at the scene,

she’d just turned sixteen

In Loving Memory 

Paul