Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or any of its characters

A/N: So this is a little poem about loss that I wrote in 7th grade and kinda liked... it's definitely not one of my best, but I just read Blood of Olympus and was thinking about Nico and then how Bianca died and I thought that this could be related to how he felt when she died. Reviews? Please?

Scars

grief, anguish,

sorrow, heartache,

misery, pain,

unhappiness, woe

do these words do it justice?

no.

is it

the roaring sound

that fills your ears,

the shock

coursing through your veins

as your brain sputters,

unable to comprehend

the awfulness

of what is happening?

no.

could it be when

your stupid, stupid body

finally begins to understand

when the choked sob tears its way free

lighting the path

for the others to follow?

when you wonder just why,

no matter what you do,

nothing hurts more than

the gaping hole in your heart

where he was roughly torn from you?

no.

it's the first death

the first loss

the first time you realize

they're gone

and they're never coming back

it's the first time you hear the words,

"I'm sorry for your loss,"

and truly understand

just how meaningless they seem now

it's the first funeral

stiff and black and somber

just a pity party, really

where your grief can mingle

churning together into one tangled rope,

black and abysmal as it stretches up to the sky

a twisted sort of salute

it's the way the world changes around you

how you can't look at someone

without seeing just how much it will hurt

when they, like him, are wrested from your grasp

it's how you suddenly have to decide

between the all-too easy, "safer" path

of depression and alienation

and the indescribably harder path

of soldiering forward,

seeing if "fake it till you make it"

actually carries any weight behind it

it's when you choose neither,

when you decide

numbness is better than the pain,

the anger,

the agony,

the sense of betrayal—

they left you

it's when you find yourself

faking a smile

when you realize

just how good you are

at pretending

when you realize

it's not healthy

that the pain is down there somewhere

but you can't bother to reach it

it's when you suddenly classify people:

those who know your pain,

how it never really goes away;

and those who don't, who,

no matter how hard they try,

will never know

until the day when their whole world stops

and they realize that life doesn't last forever

this is something that can't be characterized

with things as trivial as words

this is something that can't be explained

this is when you have no choice

but to lose,

to realize your hero

isn't as invincible as you'd once hoped.

this is something that won't get easier with time

don't believe what they tell you

it doesn't get better

they'll be no less important to you

in a hundred years

than they are right now

it will hurt no less

you can learn to live with it,

to tolerate it,

to grow a callous over your wounded heart

but it doesn't last forever

because you can spend all your energy

building your walls up

only for them to be ripped away again

believe me; I know

no matter how high

or strong, or impenetrable they may be

they will come down

and you will have to learn to live without them

because this is life;

this isn't a fairytale

people live and people die

they'll keep living

and they'll keep dying

and we'll just keep puttering onwards

and maybe, just maybe,

we'll rediscover the things

that make life worthwhile

maybe, someday,

we'll be able to look up

at the sunlight filtering

through the nicked edges of finely-veined leaves

and see their beauty

maybe we'll find someone else

to fill that hole

or at least help

someone to make you laugh

to make you smile

to make you love again

someone to heal that wound

until all that remains

is

a

scar