THE LAST ONE TO KNOW

He smiles
in the mirror.

His reflection
does not smile back.

He raises his left hand.
His reflection does not.

He raises his right hand
and scratches his nose.

His reflection does not.

His reflections laughs.

He does not.

"I'm afraid you're dead!
his reflection tells him."

"Only you....
...don't know it yet!"

His reflections steps out of
the mirror

no longer made of glass
free to be whoever he wants to be

instead of being chained
to this human.

The reflection leaves.
Slams the door.

The body on the floor
does not even hear him

. . .go. . .

I look for you
In passing faces
A stranger's glance
In haunted places

I feel you among
Nature's grandest setting
It is you that I remember
Even when I'm forgetting

I see you wherever I go
In everyone I meet
Your words echo in conversations
That pass me on the street

Your soft, easy way
That safe familiar tone
That always takes me back
To a time long gone

My dad doesn't understand visiting graves.
He says when you're dead you're dead.
That's when I realized death switched from a fear to a feeling.
He was always good at turning problems into cadavers
And painting on a fake smile with a chest cavity full of black matter.

I never did cry when my dog died
I put the constant in numb.
And sometimes I sit in that parking lot and I chain myself to my memories in protest
If you want to move past this you're gonna have to go through me.
I let the pavement swallow me whole
And think about what would've happened if she made it inside.

I want to tell you about when it was that I stopped sitting in doctors chairs and why my nightmares have teeth.
How I wish you would treat me like a tombstone
About how I want to be buried in the park across the street from my house.
How there is nothing beautiful 
about names that read like funerals.

I wonder why some houses keep lights on in every window
As if they're waiting for someone to come home.
That never will.
And if there is a light that never goes out
Why does the darkness come creeping back in every chance it gets?
And when are you coming home?

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Warm cords striking the piano gently.
My feelings accept isolation.
I agree with the unpopular opinion.
These thoughts; a cognitive dissonance.

All of this could be a consequence.
A superstition of intemperament.
I cannot recognize anything.
It feels like one big elaborate dream.

Through the static I feel the presence.
Eerie notes block my judgement.
I feel sympathy for something that doesn't exist.
My mind's eye feeling out of tune.

Tears from my forehead trickle down.
Single keys punctuate the atmosphere justly.
Everything in my heart becomes blind.
With the pianist caress; it becomes empty.
A warm place stuck in time.

I.

No, don't go now. Please
don't go now; the fog is creating ghosts
out of people and we're breathing clouds out of our mouths.
Tell me about that time when you held your breath
under the lake for six years and still survived;
tell me how if I do that, it'll never work.
I'm not a sea God
any more.

II.

My knees tell better stories than my tongue
ever did, please don't; wretched hive harangues
the mind in a plague, can't you see I'm holding you down
and telling you you're all I ever wanted,
you're all I ever wanted; your head is the stuff of dreams
you're all I ever wanted; you can put your arm
right through me and only feel mist;
I am fog. I'm creating ghosts out of you.

III.

Make it up to me in a rainbow of hues of grey;
at the end of it I'm holding my ribs open. I've never
been more colourful and sad at the same time.
You're the mirrors to my house; stay
has always sounded better than don't go

yet neither seems to work anymore.

you were a bird
locked inside a cage
and I set you free

I watched you fly high
so far away from me

looking back as I recall
it was all my fault
between you and dreams
I got caught

you were the scar
that my tears could never fill
now that I think about it
the thought makes me ill

how much we give up
for just a moment of peace
somewhere between memories
those people leave
and all that is left
buried and kept
is the pain
we cannot weep


in your eyes
I saw the lies that were true
you never turned back
and the distance grew
I waited patiently
for another eternity
but our love
couldn't make it through

they say it's ugly
what love does
what we do
it hurts so much more
when it's true


you were the heart
I placed inside my own
but the kids are lost
and the years have grown
far from our reach
there was nothing for us to keep
and when the smiles faded
there was no one left to mourn


you were the night
I lost myself in your arms
bleeding and falling apart
your voice kept me calm

holding together
what was left inside
once upon a december
you brought me back to life


now the winter falls again
and I seek your warm

no matter how much I cried
you were gone

cometh another spring
I still wait for you

beside the cage, alone.