I always loved your handwriting

But this time seeing it there hit me like lightning

In my old bedroom where I spent my first 23 years

Those black, neat, cursive letters were drawing tears

The papers stuck out of my old red chemistry binder

All those equations just another reminder that everything changes

On the gray carpet there it stood, in front of my old dresser of hardwood

Your explicit memento in that pretty writing

Like chemistry formulas, but for other reasons, had me crying

I looked for Kermit on the ceiling fan

My cat’s paw beneath the door

Wish I’d never grown up to understand

That decay is for sure

I remember when you were young like me

Out the window, where you built my getaway in that tree

I saw myself, this time, in a dream

Standing in my old room

Looking at that binder where you left your notes

Everything I already assumed: that you’re proud of me, that you love me

Words you could pen but not say

And oh so subtly, that you were going away

Your words were brave, you left me something

A handwritten note – a ballot of hope

Mixed in with a diagnosis

I went to read it but then I woke

This I noticed: Like my childhood, like Kermit, like that tree house

Everything will be gone

I’m still trying to figure the chemistry out