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Mar 2011
I've been shot through the heart
By a bullet with no name
So I have no one left to blame for this
I'm lying here
Bleeding out
Asking forgiveness from everyone I've met
But they all deleted my number along time ago
Nobody answers numbers they don't recognize anymore
So really I'm just lying here
Staring at the moon doing its best impersonation of the Cheshire Cat
And I want that
That, smile while I die
The "it ain't ****"
That swagger that everyone else seems to have
I never had

I'm lying in a casket I built
The only project I ever finished
They're shoveling piles of regrets, sorrys, and unused potential
That's enough to bury me here
My headstone doesn't read like the eulogy of a loved man
It reads like a children's book
One word per page
And the word they put on the only page about me?
Somebody else's name
So the creditors couldn't find me
It's not like anyone else calls these days
History need not remember those who did not contribute to it

The list of things I've said I would do
Is not as long as the list of things Kanye West has done
But if you let me finish you'll see it's ten times as long as the list of things I've done

I know five songs by heart
Every one of them is sad
Ain't No Sunshine
500 Miles (not the catchy one the old a capella one from the fifties)
Hallelujah
Landslide
And Red Eye
I use the word why like a piece of gum
Chewing on it until it loses its flavor
It used to taste like coconut
After 10 hours of a graveyard shift it just tastes like yesterday
And the moon doesn't track my days anymore
My feelings do and it's been today for a long time and yesterday I was happy
It's been a few years since yesterday
I can't wait till tomorrow
Who knows maybe it will come when I wake up

I have black out curtains
The sun says goodnight to my toes through the crack in them
My dreams still watch her pull the trigger
I still wake up with bullet holes
People are still not answering my phone calls
And I'm too afraid of my mirror to go knock on their doors and ask if they want to come out and play
She knew
I knew
But knowing isn't accepting and accepting isn't wanting
I want my dreams back

My feet swell up at the end of a work day
When I take my shoes off they feel better
I don't feel better now that she's gone
My heart used to swell up after seeing her
Apparently swelling doesn't always hurt
Apparently making it stop doesn't always feel better
I learn something new every day
Today I learned that if you only think happy thoughts about a person you just miss them more
Yesterday I learned if you only think bad thoughts about a person you just want to apologize
Tomorrow I'll learn what happens if you forgot that person ever left
She won't be learning the same lesson
I don't see this going too well
My therapist says it doesn't have to be fair to be how I feel
I feel discarded
Like one of my promises
Like one of her days
Like a snow man in March
The piece of litter the prisoners forgot in the blackberry bush on the side of 1-5

The moon smiles like a cat who never knew what it was to frown
I live like a man who never knew what it was to be
A collection of poems by me is available on Amazon
Where She Left Me - Michael DeVoe
http://goo.gl/5x3Tae
Michael DeVoe
Written by
Michael DeVoe  Portland, OR
(Portland, OR)   
930
 
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