This is it.
The last step.
The final action.
This is all I have to do.
Before I feel the sweet release
Of death.
Freedom.
Is that what they call it?
Release.
Maybe that's it.
Letting go.
But it's so hard.
Stepping off.
There's no turning back now.
Closing my eyes.
I've made my decision.
Taking a breath.
I feel the wind rushing past me.
Heart racing.
I plummet towards the ground.
No, wait.
I can't stop this.
It's permanent.
I wish I hadn't.
They'll miss you.
I didn't say goodbye.
It's a shock as you hit the ground.
I can't feel anything.
There's blood everywhere.
I hear screaming.
Your body shouldn't be at that angle.
I can't undo this, can I?
The sirens are getting louder.
I see my mom. She's crying.
They load you onto the stretcher.
Wait, I'm still here! Mom! Can't you hear me?
Your voice is gone, and so are you.
I see a bright darkness.
Walk towards it.
It consumes me.
Time of death: 9:34 a.m.

My soul
is getting older,
the nights are colder

and the soles
of these soft worn out
doe-skin boots are thinner

every day, way too thin
to keep the thought
of a frozen plot at bay.

I swear to you,
the unstable heads of the masses are lacking hearts,
and in their places,
the empty, sickening hole,
the spongey, earthy remains of what used to be,
lie hollowed out carcasses of the devil,
next to their sycophants and empty graves.

you can only
imagine my kiss,

i am a mirage,
the glossy night
blown into
stars,

i am a phantasm
in the autumn frost,

layered like
the night’s soft
cloud,
a stream of
golden leaves
crisp in the quiet
air,

i drown in the
water of the stars

i faint, a ghostly
apparition
you can
hardly
sense in
the dream-like
surrender of
our love,
arousing our
limbs,
kisses like
the flowers of time.

A center stripe on such a road would be no more than affectation,
The prospect of two vehicles on the same stretch of this blacktop
Which ambles from nowhere to nowhere, old logging path
Morphed into a convenience for fishermen or bird watchers
Heading to the odd bits of Adirondack Park land
Scattered higgeldy-piggeldy in its path
All but a mathematical impossibility.
Indeed, the fog lines are barely visible, a series of dots and dashes
Along the crumbling berm of the shoulders,
And the signs testifying to the calamitous curves ahead
Are faded and pock-marked
In testament to generations of pellet-gun marksmanship
And twelve-ounce projectiles.
There remain the odd traces of the byway’s former usefulness:
Rusted blades or unevenly-spoked wheels
Left behind by ancient logging outfits,
The odd abandoned hunting camp, and here and there,
Visible through gaps in thick, ancient stands of pine
(Having outlasted the original settlers and logging concerns
Through the sheer stubborn implacability of biology),
You might see an anomalous abandoned bus up on blocks,
And there are those who have sworn they have seen them
Adorned with curtains in the windows,
But that is most certainly a trick of the light,
A mis-apprehension of something half-glimpsed
By the drivers as they sped by.