When I was very young, I could only lean on headstones
and I could only read epitaphs because they were fashioned at my height
I was worried even then about what I did and didn't have to offer,
when you would and would not leave me behind,
here in the layman's world,
where everyone was spewing your words as if they were their own
But they are not,
they are yours,
and no one else's
You were a rubber stamp in this place,
your arteries thick with ink,
your synapses lined with pain and the ability to imprint that agony on the rest of us
I was worried that I would never be able to fill the page the way you did,
with your distaste for euphemisms,
with your affinity to pragmatism,
with your belief that being right was defined by doing right by all of this,
When I was very middle aged, I could only think of how you surpassed all my expectations,
and I could only dream of the encomium forged in my brain,
and then I indulged in a reverie of sorts,
one filled with eulogies from the nineteenth century Gods
And I let that marinate for months and years to come,
until the first of snowflakes, each different from the other,
fell on these cordial streets of ours
Splendid writing. I love how this piece effortlessly flows. This to me is one of the finest examples of how your stream of consciousness is so earnest and honest that the reader can only accept it as truth. Wonderful piece. Here are my lines:
ReplyDeleteYou were a rubber stamp in this place,
your arteries thick with ink,
your synapses lined with pain and the ability to imprint that agony on the rest of us