My Grave

My Grave
By: Rosanna-Lee Jean

It is September the twentieth and I sit at the lonesome grave of my sister wondering why she had to die. She was 17 years old. The same age I am today.
Two years ago, I was 15 years old and Toni came to me for help.
“You don’t know what it’s like to be me!” she screamed. “To live every day in this… this… this emptiness.”
“What are you talking about Toni?” I replied. “You have everything that you could ever want and more.” She had just sat there completely silent as if waiting for my response, “You have a boyfriend, a car, your own room, even good presents on your birthday.”
“You don’t understand Gloria…”
“Toni…” I sighed, “ You don’t understand. You’ve got it so easy. Try being me for a day. Just one day.”
“I came here hoping you would listen to me and not carry on with your own problems. Hoping you would let me tell you what’s going on in my life but you don’t want to listen. You’ll be sorry you didn’t.”
“OHHH, what are you going to do? Kill yourself?
“Maybe I will.”
She said this last statement with a sense of dark and hateful contemplation. Her tone made me wish I had not made the suggestion.
However, out of my control were her actions. My suggestion had been her way out. She had gone to bed and did not wake up. The empty bottle of codeine on her nightstand was what she left me. She left me with her painful emptiness.
Now, two years later, I sit in front of her gravestone and see the worn writing:
Toni Mores
Born October 1985
Died September 2003
You are always in our hearts
The rain starts as I read the last phrase. Is she in my heart? I hope not. I don’t want her to fill my soul with her pain. To make me emotionless. She left me with her emptiness and it’s like an open grave beckoning to me.
Guilty
No! I am not guilty. It’s not my fault.
YOU DIDN'T STOP HER I didn’t but I couldn’t have been the reason why she had killed herself. I had given her the suggestion but I did not give her the pills.
YOU KILLED HER BUT SHE'LL KILL YOU WITH EMPTINESS SHE LEFT YOU.
I didn’t kill her.
SOMEONE IS TO BLAME. SOMEONE DIDN'T LISTEN TO HER. YOU?
It was I.
The emptiness has just killed the last of my will to live and the last of my feeling of worth. I killed my sister. I am to blame. I’ve fallen into my grave and left my emptiness to no one.


I'm sorry that this story took so long to complete. Please rate this. Sincerely,
DragonRose
(Rosanna-Lee Jean)