I read the reports with my stomach in knots,
all cold little words in official slots.
Pages and dates, typed neat in black,
like that somehow stops Ben from coming back.
Then came the autopsy, clinical, plain,
one more form trying to measure pain.
But my head doesn’t read things and leave them alone,
it builds every image and drags it back home.
I see what I shouldn’t.
I carry what’s left.
A brother with questions
and a chest full of theft.
Because suicide doesn’t just end one fight,
it walks through the family and turns out the light.
It leaves all the love stood holding the door,
asking what else we could’ve done more.
And I know you were hurting, mate, I know you were tired,
I know your head was a house full of wires.
I know you wanted our Mum, needed peace,
needed the noise in your skull to release.
But the cost doesn’t stop when the breathing is done,
it lands on your sister, your brothers, your son.
It sits in the car where your laugh used to be,
it follows us round making ghosts out of tea.
It’s Theo growing up with a gap in his days,
it’s photos we stare at through watery haze.
It’s “remember that time Ben” turning to tears,
then laughing because you were chaos for years.
DJ Deckless, all trance and no plan,
Gwenjamin moaning like only you can.
Negbutt with clouds but a heart made of gold,
a daft, loving bloke who never got old.
You’d argue with walls, turn jobs into myths,
leave kitchens half done and still take the piss.
You’d give your last tenner, then swear you were skint,
loyal as hell with sawdust in the print.
And that’s what makes this so bloody unfair,
you were everywhere once,
now you’re just not there.
A noise so big it filled every room,
now silence has moved in and taken your tune.
So I’ll say this straight, because someone should,
pain lies like a bastard when life still has good.
It tells you you’re done, that they’re better without you,
then leaves us all broken and screaming about you.
It doesn’t vanish.
It changes address.
It moves into the people
who loved you the best.
I love you, Ben.
I’m angry too.
That’s grief, I suppose,
when it’s honest and true.
You went looking for Mum,
for quiet, for rest,
but left us your pain
hammered deep in our chest.
So if this saves one person from walking that road,
from handing their family that terrible load,
then I’ll drag every mile from my bones till they scream,
because love shouldn’t end
as a report I have to read.