After I’m Gone

after I'm gone
and they come and take me away.
They'll never realize
what I meant;
What I wanted to say.
They'll come and take my clothes away
to the thrift store
(if they're even good enough for that).
They'll send my books to the second hand store
but they won't realize
that the little bit of nothing
that they take
was all I had,
and all I wanted.
They'll throw pieces of paper away
with scribbles on them
and not realize that if it hadn't
been for them
that I would have died
in the middle of a crazy night.
They'll sweep shard's of glass up
and never know that those were beer bottles
thrown in fits of agony.
They'll wonder why there's a blanket
and pillow under my bed
and never know that's where I hid at night.
They'll wonder about the olive oil crosses
on all of my mirrors and windows.
They'll wonder what I ate because there is no food here.
They don't know that I forget to eat sometimes.
No TV...
No phone...
A broken black radio that is perpetually playing
sonata #8 in C minor
my possesions...ha..
pretty meager by anyone's standards
but this little bit of nothing
is the only thing that kept me going
as long as I did go.
The soul being sucked out of me
everyday
and replaced with the lies and misconceptions
of this fake world.
It will suck out of me until there is no soul left.
Just a shell
that can't feel and see;
Callous to art.
The only thing that I pray is
I'll long be dead before that happens.

----- by Jeremy Smyers

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