pausing for too long moments in the front entry where he sits now in his perpetual smile in the silver frame he complimented several years ago when he was still alive and which at the time held a picture of my brother. it's perhaps this part of the year or the months now that have gone by since i tried to think of him without pain and lying under a blanket of sugar coated rose petals or the idea that i'll never quite figure out how life is supposed to sound or taste or feel now that he's gone.

i miss you howard.