Universal Truths

I prayed for my friend to live and he didn’t. I held his puffy hand, his heart jumping green on the monitor instead of beating in his chest, and hated him, the asshole. I posted my suffering on Instagram, tacked it up right next to lurid bikini pics and thirst traps. Slush. Shit and slush and nothing. It was the first time someone I knew had died. I watched all seven hours of Angels in America the day the machine-heart stopped and took a long walk around my neighborhood, holding my high school girlfriend’s living hand, nursing the killer grief hangover. Pebbles jeweled the sidewalk like pomegranate seeds. The clearest memory I have of my friend: his body perched like a sparrow atop the tallest tree. Pine needles and dark green moss, the smell of early spring. I yelled for him to climb back down but he just wouldn’t, basking in the cold air of our terror. He got mean around fourteen, then sad. I still dream of his skinny kid arms holding tight around the trunk of that tree—I can’t languish here. We went back inside after it got chilly. We tramped our way through feathered leaves. My girlfriend’s cheeks were red as apples, the trees burst ecstatic with color. There’s nothing like a Michigan fall. But people say that everywhere.