she dances tree shadows across the blinds
across the walls
and I sit out of sight knowing she loves me

a clear creek trickles
a dead limb reaches towards heaven
questions sparkle
like mirrors
upon a barren limb
as the process of life continues
cold
         and thoroughly numb
                             as                   breath               returns
as the breeze
      picks up cadence
                                     again
   and comes my way one more leaf.
and one more
                                        Sun.

spirits look out for me
    a community of ghosts
and fairy crack mothers
  with sores and broken teeth
they mostly
    create a sky brighter
a vision more beautiful
  than i can describe
they conspire to shelter my *******
against all the stupid acts I do
   getting drunk on Olde English 800
until 3 am when I gots to work at 7
  or hitting the pipe with my last twenty
planning on a payday that doesn't come
   then I find paper blowing free on the side
of a highway as I walk
picking up aluminum,
   sprites and good witches and goddesses
see I am actually good,
   just a little faded
innocently deranged
  ****** up.

Do you know what its like to watch a man die?
to watch the blood spill from his head
like when you turn the faucet on to wash your hands
before you go to eat dinner
Do you know what its like to helplessly watch a man die?
as he is gasping for breath
while you breathe in fresh air
unable to share
Do you know what its like to wait for the police to arrive?
how deafening, terrifying that wait is
its like when someone tells you news that's so devastating you don't even think to cry you're just stuck in a transfix

They say you feel sympathy for others when you do not understand
but this was so much more than sympathy
more than the fact that I was beyond devastated
I feel as if I should have been that man
and I felt guilty that all I could do was scream and sit there with him
while I felt his soul leave his body

Do you know what its like to watch a man die?
because I do.

I thought i understood this so very well,
empathy.... the thought of putting oneself in another's position, and acting upon it

Helping others for the sake of others, not for attention or reward, but out of empathy

What little did I truly know of empathy!