life is but a cruel game
where we live each moment
always missing someone

I talked to a Serbian man
at the bus stop going home
told him my mom died
on the solstice this year
the longest night that never
would become day for her

he said his died when he was 50
that he wept like a child then
tears formed in his pale eyes

though this game seems unfair
that no one close to us remains
we only borrow one another
life is not a game played for keeps
we exchange time for experience
and life itself for memories

early morning sun weeps
rays against my skin through
open summer window
shadows hug the curves
of my arm and stomach
I believe, briefly, that I've dissolved
exsanguinated, I lay lifeless
a pile of flesh and mess
worried my soul has left it's shell
I exist only momentarily
when you touch me
when your eyes meet mine
when your body wraps around me

I vanish once more when you leave

god's teeth, like crooked giants
stood before me, unconquerable.
I've always chased windmills but
some demons are too great to slay,
and I, too foolish and tired to slay them.
"you were young once, too," they whisper,
they have been here at the dawn
of time and stand, eroded but beautiful.
they only remind me that my youth is gone,
of my fleeing mortality.
I will be long dead,
the earth will live on
without me, someday,
as will you.
will you mourn me when I go?
will you leave orchids at my wake?
I never wished to see a world without you in it,
never wished to feel my body apart from yours
though you've shown me what it looks like now.
and everything is a bit bleaker,
the first snow fall brings only
silence and slush and empty contemplation
and I hate it.
I hate being alone with these thoughts.
but rather than spearing the giants and demons,
I'd be lying if I said I didn't think
the spear would easier go through me
I'll get back on my horse and ride
towards the empty and unfulfilling horizon
as long as I can, I promise
I will fight an eternity for your memory alone

today, at the age of thirty,
I became an orphan.

two empty seats will be at my graduation.
no family at Christmas.
the last living member in this lineage.
no brothers or sisters,
no aunts or uncles.

millions of years of evolution,
and natural selection,
will end when I die...
and I will have no family to mourn me,
as I mourn for my mother today.

and maybe it's better that way,
because no one else deserves
to feel the immense loss of death.

give me a chance
to be the worst thing
that ever happened to you