Michael

This is a suicide letter from a friend that was never finished.

"I’ve been waiting my entire life to tell you that I’m dying

And I figured I’d finally get it over with.

So here I am
Carving forgive me into my teeth so every time that I speak,
I can still say that I’m sorry.

My life, it’s been a lifetime and forever is even longer

So I’d like to shake the minute’s hand for every second chance that he gave me.

And even though I wasted every one, I learned some things...

Like how it feels to wake up alone.

It’s hard holding onto something that was never really there but some nights
When everything is just right, I like to pretend I can, but its okay...

Because I know the difference.

If April is the cruelest month, it has followed me

Through the heat of summer and frost of winter,

Wearing perfume made from wilted petals

The stench of death still lingers here.

More years have past in the last than I care to remember.

But I could never forget:

In sixth grade my chorus teacher always told me,
“Michael you’ll never be good enough.”

It always excited me. She reminded me of my mother.

At the end of that year she looked at me, smiling

Her jagged teeth like a train wreck. She didn't say a word

But I knew exactly what she meant.

In high school I fell in love with a road side bomb waiting to be detonated by a passing glace.

Every time that she blew up

She picked up the pieces of herself she left on bathroom floors

Mixed with medicine she never needed.

She had the disappointment.

One day she caught me staring and laughed, walked over and gave me a hug…

She smelled like a lonely night.

As she pulled away she looked me dead in the eyes and said,

“Don't worry about me, boy. I don't hate my life.

I just fell in love with stormy weather.

And when my head clears up, I put it back in the fog where it belongs.

I don't like seeing too far in front of me. It scares me.

And here I get to pretend the headlights are something other than second chances"

We made love to each others' promises

And I sang her to sleep when she got tired of chasing everything else.

She said she liked my voice and…she said I could be famous and… She said I could make anyone listen…

I should have."

At that point he dropped his pen, turned to me, and asked if it was all a dream

As if saying yes would make it any less real.

I nodded.

At that point he turned away, tied his arm up with broken dreams, and shot the blues straight into his veins.

He sang me to sleep that night

And I'll be damned if it wasn't the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.

When I woke up I read a section he hasn't said aloud. It read:

I didn't address this to anyone,

Because it was meant for everyone

And no one at all.

There is a time where it is neither day or night.

It just is, as we are. Forever.

Everything… and nothing at all.

Today, I believe him.

Yesterday, I didn't.

Tomorrow, I probably won't either.

But what I do know

Is that somewhere between heaven and a hard place

Michael is singing

And God is wishing he had a voice like that.

Reviews

[Nianque]

Intense. Excellent.

[Devons]

Intense and almost vicariously soul-destroying, is this poem. The imagery is hard and nightmarishly unattainable to the mind which tries to embrace it. This is a half-world populated by half-shadows that is impossible to deal with, and therefore, as the words imply, there is surely a place for everyone after this existence where the wisdom that has tortured them and destroyed them is put to good and happy use. And in a suitable environment.

"More years have past in the last than I care to remember."

..As one line alone, this one encompasses more within its simple, yet complex statement than perhaps many others of its equally-inventive brothers which surround it like a comforting circle of friends.

It is hard to construct an appraisal of this poem without becoming poetic in the process... And that is a positive result.

"And God is wishing he had a voice like that."

[A.Lee]

I really don't know what to say to this... This is very heartbreaking and so touching... You put it together very well. So well, in fact, that it brought tears to my eyes. I don't know what else I could say except that you did an excellent job, especially the last two lines. This is a beautiful tribute...