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I don’t want this to be a careful poem.

Even the word absence takes on its own kind of shape,

like the way in which a ghost materializes in a room

you thought was previously abandoned.

I’ve seen too many people fall in love with sadness.

They consider it a tangible thing, an object they can hold

in their hands and marvel at

like a glass case full of dinosaur bones

in a museum.

I want this poem to shake those people up; I want it to throw

them against the wall and rip out their heart and stomp on it.

I want it to wake them up.

Sometimes if you touch a person you can burn holes in them

with only your fingers. That’s the power of a flame.

Some matches

never go out.

Even the stars feel a certain kind of melancholy every once in awhile;

maybe they think about suicide

the way some trees wish they could hang themselves

from their own branches.

I want this poem to be dangerous. I want it to be

a wake-up call. If you’re in love with sadness,

I hope it f***s you over and breaks your heart

so you never have to go back to it again.

Even empty rooms

have feelings.

Pick yourself up, brush yourself up,

and go on. Go on go on go on.

It’s time.