Dark Poetry Prose Poetry April 27, 2003 Dark Poetic Prose

4-27-03 sunday 10:35pm brick NJ

i can imagine myself dead. what those i have known might have left. where it would go and where it would stay. where it would be and how it would leave them. sad i suppose. and i wonder would my guilt carry over beyond the grave. i don't know. i wonder which is fairer. which is righter. to be alive because their are lives that hold you close. or to ask that they let you go. that they could understand i never belonged here. that i never really have.

i can easily decide how and why and when. and who i would remember just before everything would be forgotten. only a few. only just a few i don't want to hurt. and some i guess would take it better than others. but still i wonder how wrong i might be this time.

i can imagine myself dead. like a daydream you see when you close your eyes to the sun and only feel the light though you can no longer see it. like remembering the last touch of someone you love. a grin moves across your lips as you lick them and ponder when or if ever it may happen again.

i am nothing save these words i befriend. i am nothing beyond the scope of servant to the needs of those that require uses of me. i am a servant born and been. i am a poet lost in a pages and chapters that have never needed my presense. an afterthought or a maybe still wet on your lover's lips. you know that maybe is just a kind way of saying goodbye without burning any precious bridges.

i look sometimes for the lethal combinations. some nights even try them. but it doesn't happen. i'm still scared. afraid of hurting them. afraid of failing yet again and having to face the consequence. it was different when i was too young to be held accountable for. but i'm older now. and every choice. every action has to be permanent if you have any hope of not regretting it. ever decision has to be certain. every person must be considered. every possibility littered with so many indefinites. so many fears of what if. what if i should fail. what if i should succeed. what if they hate me because. or worse, what if they love me and i break their hearts beyond recovery. what if even without a ghost i would haunt. what would they remember if. a coward. a whiner. a lot of melodramatic rhymes that filled up my files until that one final page overtook me. until one more beer, one more thought was just one too much. a coward. a cry baby who couldn't find the good in anything. or just couldn't find the good in me.

i can imagine myself dead. and it feels like a dream. all ripe and ready for the picking. all sweet and suculent like a apple about to fall from the tree. i dream myself gone. just a whisper left in their thoughts. i clutch the songs and search the internet for the surest way to. it hasn't changed. all these years. same thoughts. same damn pages. i'm juts older now. the only thing that grows stronger is the guilt. the only thing stopping me if that i can't face failing again. that it has to be done right. i can't face coming back from that again. i pciture myself dead most nights and i wonder how much it would hurt them. is the trade off fair my pain for theirs? the end is never certain, but in me, the need for it has always been.