My Own Keeper

will the stores be open tomorrow if I die today?
will music still play on the radio if I die today?
will I still be able to travel if I die today?
if I die tomorrow maybe
I heard our lives are carved on scrolls stored in the Akashic records
if you go in my basement I have rows and rows of my journals
documenting every feeling since I’ve been living
when my friends died they asked what will happen
I told them not to worry about asking those questions
when my family died they asked what will happen
I told them we just gotta accept it
when I died I asked God what will happen
He said nothing
it’s hard to accept all the things in life
everybody wants everything
but they always forget about the downsides
like how every relationship has to end
one day she won’t come home
one day the meds won’t work
one day you’ll really jump
and I see it but I go on living anyway
let myself go so when the phone rings I’m free to pick up death’s call
we can build a thousand skyscrapers but we’ll never reach heaven
we can fly to Mars but we’ll never find aliens
we can love the whole world but we’ll never be loved by all
and that’s okay
unlike Tupac I can’t think of one things that needs changing
murderers run free and I won’t be one to chase them
one thing I’d like to kill is people’s thoughts
nobody ever had a good one, just one that was less awful
nothing good has ever been said
if I was in control we’d burn it all down like Alexandria
if I was in charge we’d be dancing around bonfires drinking red wine and wearing no clothes
if I was God we’d all be gone and I’d turn back time so we never were in the first place
you think I’m so negative but I’m positive in the realest way
you think I’m not happy but my face hurts from smiling
they say I am nothing
I said so what’s the problem
I should
I need
I want
I is so high maintenance
I, could use a vacation
maybe die and put it in the freezer in the basement

Death List

I wrote a list of all the things I want to do before I die.  Yesterday I found the list under my bed and read it again:

True Romance

My finger won’t pull the trigger and my mind won’t let me settle on one thing until it’s done.  Changing lanes repeatedly. Repeatedly. I am lost in desire, caught in the trap of desire for no desires.  Is this too complicated? Can you hear me? What are you going to- wait, that’s not what I wanted to say. Someone was saying it on TV.

Reflections

I am drunk right now
and I was sitting at the beach
and the sand was soft and the sky had streaks of cloud
the sun was setting and the moon looked at me with half its face
I was drunk

I walked to the edge of the water and looked at the ripples
I wanted to take off my clothes and dip my body into the water
my entire body underneath the water
and hold my breath for just a minute
then I would emerge brand new
my sins would be washed away, dripping off of my body

Cemetary Teacher

He only ever enjoyed going there and nowhere else. There was nothing else he wanted to do but be with the dead and for them to speak to him.  The stony faces of their tombstones were alongside him in the photos he took. He was among friends and they welcomed him.

He would go in the middle of the week when it was most quiet and most people were at work.  Not that a cemetery is the most popular place to go on any day, but in the middle of the day in the middle of the week he felt he could be most comfortable there.  And he never came empty handed.  He always brought with him stories and poetry and sometimes flowers or small gifts for his friends.

He would make his way around the paths in the same order each day.  First he went by the old tombstones from the 19th century and let them know how the world was still an awful place and how god had not come to save humanity at all.  He told them how technology has taken over our lives and that the youth are filled with greed and selfishness.  Sometimes he would bring some whiskey for the men and flowers for the women.  Daisies or roses were his favorite and he would place a single flower on top of the grave, right on the grass.  He loved the grass and how green and full of life it was.  Even though death lay beneath the soil, there wasn’t really any death at all but a circle of death and rebirth.  He figured the body gave food to the worms and other insects, and also provided for the grass that grows on top of them now.  Their bodies have not disappeared into a black hole, but have been transformed into a billion new things, and will continue to transform until the end of time.