I am not truly sure, not at all, that I loved her.  I am always insisting that this is the word...this this little word, love, that gets us in the most trouble.  Love.  What it is and what it isn't.  No, I'm not sure I loved her but there she is in her ash-box.  This black brick contains the very pieces of her and I've begun to keep flowers there until they wilt and fall, tinged with guilt as they do as if I might keep them alive if I tried a little harder.  I always tried to make her laugh.  I tried to impress her and once in a while I stood up to her.  Not all that often but once in a while I'd get a lick in.  Kid sisters.  We were really kid sisters.  But did I love her?  I don't know and now that she is just "absence" in all of its forms (late/not yet/done-all done, never, gone, empty, zero, still...you get the picture and why bother closing those parentheses as if rules matter to the dead.....period Love no love is not what most think it is or at least if they do think it more than a four letter word usually coupled with fuck or hate or i and you no i am not truly sure if i loved her and if i did then she forgot to return it not knowing of course like i do that love is that thing in which you worry about the outcome the ultimate outcome of a persons soul in the afterlife and now she is in the interlife i do wonder if she can hear me in that ash-box of hers and sometimes i yell at her or try to make her laugh hoping that she is nice and tight in there not cold not hot and looking out onto the prairies of heaven the rolling ones that climb up into the cathedrals of mars and remind me of mogollon and pinos altos and the city of rocks and as they lift into the air to touch the bottoms of thunderheads i dont know if i loved her enough at the end when i failed to ask her too embarrassed i suppose to ask her just if maybe she might utter the shehada for me for old times sake but somehow i know that she knew i was doing it for her anyway without her permission as if she would mind because i knew she wouldnt mind and now in her ash-box this thing that has reduced her to all the common denominators i wish if just once more we might try to have that conversation but know that we did but it just didnt go well and it leaves you hoping) no I am not sure at all that I loved her you tell me.  Did I?