A woman I never knew did this to me:
The Sue whom I never even knew
got even with me for loving Barbara.

I can’t breathe.
Everything has stopped.
My house is a series of boxes.
I am dead.

I killed myself with my love.
I killed myself with my love.
I killed myself with my love.
I am dead.

She once wrote her first name with my last
in the dew on my car’s rear window,
looked up at me and smiled.

I am dead.
I am not breathing.
I am dead.
I think I am dead.

I cannot close my eyes.
I am cold in a warm house.
My mouth will not open.
I am ready to leave.

There is no thought worth the thinking.

I am dead.
I am not moving.
These eyes are not seeing.
My heart not beating.
I am dead.
I will stare out the window as the dead stare.
Will she not cry for me?
Of course not.

Someone sent her roses.
Someone not me.
Someone she never explained.

Her birthday will pass without me.

There is no end to this being dead.
My heart is not beating.
My fingers are not typing.

I see a different world.
I see stones.
Huge white stones from the underside.
I am dead.

I am dead and the dying never ends.
Position me and I will stare.
Catatonic.
Janie.
Annmarie.
Now Barbara.

I am dead.
I am in shock.
I cannot move.
I cannot sleep.
I cannot breathe.
I am dead.

This is what the suicide feels.
I will die and my soul will not care.

My feet look old suddenly.
And I don’t feel so good.
My eyes are stuck on open.
And I suspect there is optical hemorrhaging.

I’ll have to hide my love of her now.
And my tears will have to be embedded in messages to others.
She will not want to hear.

There is no fear.

I wonder if she is chatting with the
roses guy?
Now there’s a killer of a thought.
Oh God. This ignoring her is awful.
There she is and I may not go to her

And so now I have lost both of them?
Irrevocably?

I died and lie stilled in my coffin.

I have no words to shape this pain inside me.
An alien eats away my heart and my soul,
rots my neck and my shoulders,
diseases my eyes and poisons my voice.

There is a great cold silence growing inside.
And outside something stares hungrily.