Your Smile

The world seems an empty place without you

Many people cannot smile

Because you are no longer here

Your smile won’t touch us

The world seems so lonely

I sit and wonder

About how life would go

If you were still here

If you had not been taken from us

One cold December day

Life would go on

But the world would be so much brighter

With your smile

You would see how the world changed

On September 11, 2001

When many more lives were lost

Middle school would end

And high school would begin

Maybe, just maybe we’d be in the same high school

I never knew what high school you would have attended

If you had not been lost

High school would have been more bearable

With just the knowledge that you were there

Smiling as always

Maybe we would have had classes together

Maybe not

Maybe we would be friends

You would make so many friends

I could see it

You would grow up

You would suffer through gym

Take classes that you liked

So many choices

So little time

You would fight and flirt

And maybe fall in love

You would worry about the ACTs and SATS

You would worry about college

What you would be when you grew up

You would graduate

Walk down the aisle with the rest of your class

And accept a fake diploma

Waiting for the real thing to come in the mail

You would spend the last summer wishing

You didn’t have to grow up

And become an adult

You would go off to college

And become what you wanted to be when you grew up

You would be a man

Maybe start a family

Live and love

If you were still here

Not another victim of cancer

You wouldn’t have left behind a world

Who loved you

Who needed you

Needed your smile