and youre not ready
and you havent sat down yet but your roommates holding your hand and shes crying
so sit down you must and his mothers trying to comfort you but then your
heads pointed at the grooves in the wood flooring
which was just installed this summer actually
and youre looking through them for an answer of what you could have done differently and youre
looking and looking and looking and
just when you thought there was nothing his father reminds you theres some things and you think,
if there was,
why didnt you?
sometimes someone dies
and its still the day of, and youve told your closest. but you just you just
dont know how to tel
I cried myself sane and then
moved on. How strange, that a man
can split open like a rotten peach and find,
at last, nothingness. How strange to realize:
only then can sunlight enter his veins.
Death dissolves us. Nothing has changed
but everything is different. I spend an hour
pressing my fingers against a wall, the skin
whitening as blood retreats.
There is no regret, no fear. Only a man
who whitens against his final four walls,
the empty chair, the selfish and wandering grief.
Only a man whose face slowly unravels and the way
I wash my face, make dinner, let myself forget.
Strip away the inessential,
Remold the childlike wonder.
Distill the essence of your self,
Banish the envy and the anger.
Refill the coffers of your kindness,
Hand off grudges you've held too long.
Peel back layers you've hidden under,
Laugh heartily that you've been so wrong.
Remember all your lost kingdoms
Left behind at edge of Childhood.
Bathe in moonlight on windswept nights,
Lose yourself in the wild wood.
When you sense your phoenix rising,
Cast back your eyes, once more (at most),
Softly gaze on your old scarred soul--
Forgive yourself first and foremost.