in memory of

Paul Trahan

25

by Kylee Porche

Chauvin, Louisiana
So, about seven houses down, at my uncle’s house, he had a camper in his yard, and my cousin Paul used to live in the camper. Well, one day, while I guess he was in the camper, a drug deal went wrong, his dad found him a couple days later with a hammer still in his head. So, blunt force trauma.

Connection

My grandma used to be married to his dad, years ago, very long time ago. But we grew up as cousins, like he was always about 9 years older than me, 10 years older than me, but we were pretty close. Like, we would always go into stuff together, the amount of dirtbikes we would ride. We were menaces.

Memories

So, at my uncle’s house up the street, we used to take little dirtbikes or golfcarts, and we would run it up and down the street, for days, hours. One day, we wrecked it into the ditch, and Paul had hurt himself really bad, and we were trying not to tell anybody, but Paul ended up having to get surgery. We kinda got into a lot of trouble.

Reminders

Honestly, seeing my sister’s kids grow up and do like crazy stuff, the stuff that we used to do growing up. It makes me think of him a lot cause we used to get into some trouble, everyday.

Wish I could say

I wish I could tell him to like, get it together. It’s not about drugs. I know you’re in Chauvin, I know it seems like the thing right now, but please get out of Chauvin, please get out of this place. Like that’s all I can think about, just get out, get off the drugs, get out. It’s hard but you can get there, I believe in you.