Here's the whole poem (i'll keep it anonymous because she might kill me for putting this on here):
our chilling hands,
which dance along the backs of our wives or lovers
alternating depending upon the weather,
alternating depending upon our moods,
alternating depending upon nothing at all.
& most importantly, (in a rare moment)
when we find ourselves dancing awkwardly behind the houses of our sons
ripping our shoes off to bring ourselves down to the levels of our grandchildren,
we must shout at them,
"Goddamnit, sons, there is nothing in this world faster & more fulfilling than a bursting heart."
but we retire to rocking chairs,
with aching breaths & tired eyes
our memories locked in parking lots & time spent on highways
where city lights glowed our names & the sounds of a false future.
where we carried the words of Jack Kerouac & tattooed them on the backs of our palms,
where we best knew them.
the city lights haunting us, directing us
in the days before we lived for Prosperity
with the money now stacked in a savings account for College & a-future-in sales,
insurance,
door-to-door delivery men afraid of death.
our chilling hands,
drafting words of social protest that come crashing down upon us - red cheeked.
the soap we run across unused jaw lines & heaving chests that refuse to be satisfied,
drawing themselves instead back to when we spoke with syllables
-----now anxious gazes
& the hearts that once beat between dislocated shoulders
were often so loud,
they’d stare at us.
…but now we only attract attention during christmas-time
when we quietly & slowly lift ourselves to hang garlands from our windows
as our relations and neighbors cheer our efforts.
smiles & tongues are numbed by our useless natural pointed toes,
which flatten their stance for more walking & less movement.
the concrete on tables against our elbows & the blinding orange lights that are nothing like they should be,
the calls we extend to glittering yellow birds who laugh at our weighted, faded wings
& the children who despise us for our timely casseroles & our nightly routines
(sex without love)
(tears without grief)
(nothing. nothing. nothing.)
never knowing that we resent ourselves more than they ever could.
feet planted firmly,
we grasp our frozen hands where painful, nostalgic scars & bruises plague ivory skin
where we lift between our fingers the machine for our suicide note,
bringing pen to paper how the tax-books that keep our eyes beating
(our eyes beaten?)
are keeping our hearts numb.
& though we burn the pages before we're through,
we commit the words to memory
& as we finally leave, ending life & brimming with nothing,
caring for no one,
our eyes to the ground,
we force ourselves to repeat and repeat and repeat the mantra within our head
"I simply shall not exist."
