B Writes

We met at the start of college and had that lunch and lived in the same room and now he’s dust or bone and I am swollen reddish flesh

and generations before mine were rendered carrion in military industrial complex project to kill a people in vietnam

And they live impacted today impacting everything; impact comes down like fat raindrops

And now what? He died, I lived, but do not take advantage of life, what is the point of either?

Maybe he wanted something he never got or felt like he had to be something he couldn’t

Either way he’s an understandable tragedy. This half expressed dialectic torture unending in mind is not comprehensible

Can anything be esoteric on a blog? Whatever. I feel like eggshell after omelet already eaten

But nothing was even harvested from the smoke my burning produced, no whirring machine powered by cremation

If there were we’d rightly complain and spend years of lives trying to rectify one problem in problem world drowned in greed

And everybody’s wasting their lives even those with infinity to waste, nothing there but endless chase in dismal dark

Everything stupid naive selfish navel gazing bullshit for self to feel like something beyond slouched internal tragedy but now like eternal too bloated balloon destined for cathartic puncture

A boy died at the start of this poem and I don’t even care long enough to stay on topic because I guess I’m the point? 

No joy in death but frankly minimal sadness due to distance and the fact we never really became friends

Loud clicking keys silent forever tumbled off building like pepper smashed on ground out of mute frustration during freshman year

What if I’d seen him, and looked past my phoneshield and mindtrap and attempted and hadn’t set every bridge on fire winter break freshman year?

And a world with people that I seceded from, left and went to Rome in mad quest for personal humanity finding riotous joy art future love for self and life and world

Became typical in another way, perhaps shedding typicality given number of manifestations of typicality

Did he rot on the vine in Seattle crushed in social freeze of estranged campus alienated students dehumanized screens?

I was in incandescent universe of impossible streets salty oily bread women smiling my mind collapsing inwards incessantly

Woke up in Richmond turned to left in hand saw pen smoked smiled in summer swelter

Endless gazing image of sky and breeze and tree bracketing personal care in universe away from stress and burnt rubble of social life 

Came back fell in felt hope and pain of opportunity cost in sky palace with every noise and thought coming as an intruder from below

Ventured down to sit in permanently foggy mind in rooms where I could have learned something 

Hauled my sorry ass to the finish line with more apology emails than things to feel proud of in five year span

Non-friend – could call her Burnt Bridge #4 – texted said he died and asked to meet

We did and I apologized and said almost nothing beyond basic surprised reaction, feeling like text came from concern but also more fussed with trying to come off positively

We never spoke again; neither did he.