A decade from now,
My words will only be a carcass even birds won’t want
To pick at anymore.
I won’t be able to keep track of where my similes skip off to,
And maybe I’ll discover later that they crossed the street like a chicken
That wouldn’t know to look both ways,
Causing a six car pileup,
But never making it to the other side of the road as I intended them to.
Maybe my metaphors will age quickly,
And ten years down the road
Their doggy jowls will quiver with one last yawning breath
As they collapse beneath the nearest tree from hip failure
Resting at last beneath a pleasant summer sun.
I don’t like to think about it,
But I’ve entertained the idea
That perhaps I will neglect my words,
Letting all the quatrains pass me by.
Yes, that is how my structured sentences will meet their end:
With no periods
But a blank space
Where your name should be.
I’d like to think that someday
I won’t have this horrible need to write anymore
I’ll describe my perfect days because I want to,
Not to fill this void I made
When I handed out my consonance like candy
And scattered similes in the air like skittles
During that drought we had a while ago
When everything was black and white
And I thought everybody wanted
A taste of the colors I’m made of.
I like to entertain the thought that someday
Someday
People are going to reach back through the decades and excavate my words
And try to find deep meanings beneath all my poetry.
Scholars will slit the throats of my similes,
Claiming there was some philosophical point pumping through the jugular,
And I might laugh somberly [a little] if they do.
They’re going to find the rotted carcasses in the most random of places:
A passenger seat,
The floor by a bathroom,
A stairwell,
Under a tree.
I know that some might try to find the cause of death.
In fact,
I know they will.
But I’d much rather people look for the only reason of birth,
The only meaning behind all my metaphors,
I want these people to catch the quatrains I let pass me by when it hurt too much.
When it hurt too much
To just write-
I love you.
