(no subject)

[dancing_crow]

After an excess of adolescent poetry slamming
and not enough sleep
I am condemned to write free verse
because I cant think of how else to say it.

We drag our dead behind us like exploded balloons
the tiny deflated rags of old life
that we cannot release, still on strings in the dust -
we drag all our dead with us, a tangled handful of love and longing
from when first we figured it out; a hamster or cat or favorite dog
the grandmother, mother, sister brother
a horse, another horse, the most recent dog and cat
a distant cousin, my favorite sister-in-law
all those dead, coming with us, remembered, mourned, yelled at
my husband STILL isn't done with his mother, a decade after her death

Some messages to our dead are easy
I miss you, I still love you, I still think of you, I imagine what you'd say
some are harder - why could you not love me as i needed
or wanted

and still they follow us, or we drag them or we are not ourselves without them
where would we be, actually
with no strings