Tag: death

Roadside crosses

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Crosses and fake flowers
decorate the roadsides here.

It seems like I can’t drive more
than 2 miles before seeing
another white marker,
a distant yet familiar name,
and the colors of the dead.

Do you ever wonder, like I,
about these deaths?
Do you examine the curvature
of the road, the posted speed limit,
or the potential road slickness
in the rain?

I hear metal crunching,
airbags deploying, and
sirens when I think too
much about it.

What feels worse
is I imagine myself,
moreover see myself,
in every wreck.

I am the blank face,
the broken legs,
the fractured ribs.

I am the faulty engine,
the swerving truck,
the oil-rain mixture.

There’s a great sadness
that hangs over these roads.
It’s nearly suffocating.

All I can hope to do
is play my music a little louder,
roll the windows down
a little further,
and say a word of peace
to every lost soul
on every road.

Coming undone

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Phrases keep lingering in my mind,
simple, yet obfuscating ideas
about the existential things
all young poets strive
to dissect
with their words.

‘Life is simply a death worship.’

It’s heavy, existence
in this world.

‘There is so much said in the silence.’

One could point to the
character flaws of humanity —
the ignorant and bitter
ruses of power,
the battles of
pessimistic optimists —
but none of that seems to matter.

‘Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.’

How do you do it?

‘The heart carries scars.’

How do you see
the world without
faltering?

‘Stuck. Like glue.’

These phrases seem small,
non-consequential at first glance,
yet I feel unsteady in their wake.

‘The world is coming undone.’

Thoughts of late

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Death becomes me —

that’s what I think
as I send an unflattering
photo of my greying
and purple face to you.

It’s the little things,
like the growing ache
and the discolored lips
and the persistent thoughts
that shake me so violently.

My caverness body
echoes with each
dropping pin of emotion,
each forming shadow,
each stirring notion.

I’m holding on
as I always do,
but these rocks
I cling to seem to pull
me further down, down

and I’m sputtering.
I’m looking for something
to glimmer, for
that shining, useful body
I inhabit.

Death becomes me —

that’s what I think
as I stare into the mirror
and see a young girl
peeling herself away from
the world.

I hold on to her
as if she is a balloon,
tethered by spider webs
and ribbon.

She might fly away one day,
accepting an inevitability
of all stardust,
but today she remains rooted,
tied tight around a bruising wrist.

To bleed

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Death calls out with her haunting mannerisms,
and I sway, like the pines creaking in the wind, not breaking.

I struggle to understand this world,
to see the lack of empathy that pervades conventional thought.
I search for compassion, for a trickle of warmth in the eyes of each stranger.

What is compassion,
if not twine tied around your finger and mine;
if not butterfly wings moving the breath of wind;
if not love bleeding out with every word said?

Where is the reason,
if this hand can’t grasp yours or theirs or theirs;
if people are dying and dying and dying, alone?

When will we heal our broken ears — mend these tattered hearts?

The cold wind is persistent, swaying the trees, limbs bending.
Maybe there’s a lesson here, confused by the rustling of leaves.

Choice

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We stand,
hand in hand,
fates twisting round like
english ivy climbing black iron rails.

Will we remember this moment —
the thrill before the swooshing air,
pounding against our eardrums,
threatens to shatter us?

When our time ends
we will start fresh,
rebirthed from the ashes
of our ancestors.

We will stand tall,
shoulder to shoulder,
soul to soul,
hands limp.