You always spoke too fast,
And then stopped yourself, apologizing
Mumbling now
You always danced much longer than everyone else at the parties
Did you ever think you'd make it out alive?
I wish the answer was yes
((Even though I knew better))
You always stayed in bed for far too long
And cried much too hard
And loved people who couldn't feel the same
It started to wear on you,
Funny what love can do
It fades
Or did it never exist?
Why am I here? You asked me
You asked me often
I answered the same each time
'You and the universe are the same, and we need you here'
Maybe it wasn't good enough,
Maybe it was my fault,
Maybe It was my fault
You're breathing faster now
I try to calm you down,
It never works,
It never works
I got angry,
Impatient
Maybe it was my fault-
Is my fault
I don't know how to write anymore
Your hands always guided mine,
Your hands don't exist anymore
You always played your music too loud,
You were only yourself while you were drowning your thoughts out with song
People would yell at you,
And I'd try to sing along
Maybe I didn't sing loud enough
I'll never forget the day you turned your music off,
Both literally and figuratively
An allegory,
Or is it irony?
I don't know anymore
I remember you laying in the wooden bed-
Box
Skin soft, artificially pink
I showed up to your wake, drunk
((Wasn't much of a surprise, was it?))
You'd always told me that you would be the first one to go
Sadly it was true,
Should've been me
I punish myself everyday for it-
Trust me
I showed up drunk
Funny how my veins were filled with the same poison that killed you
Maybe I subconsciously meant to do that
I showed up drunk
I jumped in and tried to resuscitate you,
They dragged me out and gave me this look
This disgusted, disappointed look
And I realized that's how people have been looking at you your entire life,
And I finally understood
They threw me out and I fell to my knees
I understood why you took the blade
Took the blade to your--
I saw you laying in that box,
And wondered where your soul was
I remember those nights,
I remember those late nights
Clutching each other in the cold
Wanting out of this town,
Of this world
I stayed
You relied so heavily on me and
I'm sorry,
I'm sorry I couldn't stop you from lifting the bottle to your lips,
The blade to your wrist,
The gun to your mouth,
I'm sorry I couldn't quiet your thoughts
Now I know how evil they were
I'm sorry I couldn't stop you from lifting the bottle to your lips,
The blade to your wrist,
I made a home in your veins
so when you cut them,
I died with you
I fell to my knees and finally understood

(and I cannot live
from with-out)

<>
a poem in appreciation to Rossella Di Paolo

<>

I, too:
          - am an embryonic work in progress,
well into my seventh decade, with no ending in sight


                                I too,    
live in the house of poetry, the address likely differs,
but suspect the innards of the houses differs little,
the decor,  quite similar

         - my house shrewdly requests a rethinking,
                                    noting, it lives my artifice,

with in & with out

Then, we are a We:
                                  
          - my cavities house her, She, Poetry is of Ruth (1) born,

          - Poetry, She, reminds me, ”whither thou goest, I will go”


This duality:
          - where the haunting of words providential,
             emanate, both inhabiting & inhibits my breathing
              She, a fearsome creature, a fearful-something,
for it tears me and shreds tears its demands be wrung
from with in to with out

She, Poetry:
          - leaves me gaping, hollow, fills me with
            depressurizing boreholes exposed to the elements  of
            externalities of an admixed atmospheres, that nature demands             be refilled, fresh in, stale out,
for which the artifice trick is knowing which is which

when Poetry’s  birthing:
          - chest pounds, heart-rate beats heavy metal,
            abdomen contracts, there then, no languid in my language,
            no help untangling the alpha-bet jumbling,
            product of the screams of pushing,
squeezing it forth

you’re hoping to quick-catch newly formed combinations,
for if you fail, a poem
noisily crashes to and through the floorboard cracks,
where poetry’s chaotic glinting etes
maliciously glimmer~winks at me
with a sarcastic thank you

“ah, too bad, another creation stillborn,
gone to rest, biting the nether dust,
without hope of resuscitation…”*

just another unfinished work in progress

periodically
a survivor clean caught, transcribed, edited to be finished,
amniotic fluids cleared,
poem resurrected
blessed with eternal life,
readied to be shared and delivered,
affirmed

and you say to no one and to everyone:

this poem will be our poem,
wither it goes, ascending, descending,
all live in the house of poets,
one house,
many apartments,
each poem a god,
and
my God will be our God,
your God, my God,
in the House of Poetry