I remember you around with your mohawk, tall and lanky.
I was twelve and running.
You always seemed to show up when I needed a friend.
We ran into each other after I returned from San Francisco and you thought me a ghost as you heard I had died.
Sometimes I think I did die.
You showed up at my door, Lennon-like, needing me. Needing shelter in my Temple, all sparkly-eyed, all lost looking to be found. The drums, the never-ending talks, you pickin’ ’n grininn’ on the toilet. You took over the kitchen too.
My sweet kitchen fool.
Joey, I’m sorry for letting you go.
I'm sorry for making you go.
I’m sorry for saying you must go when you did not want to, when you stood there talking to me through a hole in the pantry wall.
I needed you to be strong.
I was angry that you never found answers, and that all your questions never changed.
When I heard that you tried to cross over the line and was found in the park, that they had to scrape your eyes when they brought you back; I got lost in the blinding imagery of you there on the ground, sightess. I cry thinking of this, still.
When I finally heard of it, you had already made it happen. For good this time. You took the pills as you sat in the rafters of your garage with a noose round your neck waiting to pass out and fall from the highway of your life, to leave it all behind.
This time you made it happen.
Somehow no-one told me you had crashed, that you were unsteady behind the wheel. I was shocked to see you were so brave; how you really resolved to leave and get-gone.
Where was that turn you took, that the days looked hopeless, and the nights unbearable.
I had to work out my guilt of making you leave. How you were in protest, how you never could hide your hurt from me.
I guess you scared me the same way I scared you.
I’m not afraid anymore.
Yet, I still can’t say goodbye.
I need to thank @geekorner for his help in sorting this monster of a mess out (I still get emotional over this). Guy has helped with quite a few of my pieces throughout this process (which is an act of trust and love as I never show my writing in process to anyone), yet, this was the messiest as I could not see clearly when getting these thoughts out. Thank you, Guy. <3 If you have not had the pleasure of @geekorner's editorial help, you are truly missing out on master level feedback and critique. You can find him at the @isleofwrite's discord server -- truly a gem.
All pieces are newly crafted and posted shortly after in adherence to the rules of the challenge. All the photos are mine unless otherwise stated.
Entry for Day 38 of 100 Days of Poetry Challenge by @d-pend.
Join the Steemit School here: https://discord.gg/yZvYjfM organized by @dobartim on Discord.
I find it a bit hard to comment on this piece, because I'm so closely tied up to its publication, and even though I know the story behind most of your poems, and even helped shape up and commented on quite a few prior to publication, I actually pushed a bit harder for some things here, and also gave you some of my comments in private, so I'll focus on the most salient stuff, here.
What I find most interesting about this piece is where it is placed relative to your other poems. You have many poems that deal with your past, and while I say that it sounds as if you're still attached to your past, still attached to the ghost conjured by it, you say you aren't, and that you can write of all those experiences exactly because you are no longer beholden by them.
And then you have quite a few pieces about people who wronged you in the past, people who thought only of themselves and mistreated you by ignoring you, or who mistreated you by resenting you, and by deed and word.
And that is also tied up to the above - these instances are very much part of not just your history, but who you are, in the sense that who you are today has been affected quite a bit by how you've been treated, and how you ran away, and your sense of abandonment and found home and family, and other things that people can piece together from your poetry, where you truly do bare yourself quite a bit.
But you've put those things behind you, according to you, and we'll accept for the sake of this conversation that it is true, at least in terms of still-held resentment, and of the power of these memories over you.
It's relatively easy (relatively, not absolutely), to let go when others mistreat us - we just erase them out of our lives, and what people who don't matter do hardly matters either.
And yet, when we hurt others, especially without intending to, it can devastate us. I still remember occasions 15 years ago where I hurt a friend, and when I had to go and lie down in my bed afterwards as a result. It's happened when others hurt me, but it was much rarer, yet, when I hurt others, it was quite a common ocurrence.
And hurting others, whom we care for, that truly is a ghost that comes to haunt us, at least if we're not sociopaths who only care about their own well being.
The most interesting lines to me in this poem are the penultimate couplet:
Because they can be read in so many ways. How did he scare you? That he relied on you? That he was depressed and did not improve? That he called on you to be his family?
Hm.
And it is so hard to have others rely on us. So hard to deal with people who are depressed. One needs to grow up to handle these things. And well, you had to grow up as well. No one is born fully-formed.
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This is a truly beautiful and heartfelt tribute. I'm so sorry for your loss, and for his. But, as long as you remember him, he is still with you.
I'm reminded of a passage from the Bhagavad Gita;
That which lives, lives forever. Only the shell, the perishable, passes away. The spirit is without end, eternal, deathless.
Be at peace. You honored yourself, he knew that, and in the long run, it is unlikely you could have affected the outcome. All is as it should be.
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Oh, I love that passage. <3
Thank you for your kindness.
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You're welcome.
Thank you for your lovely tribute to Joey. I can tell it took courage to write.
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Some very powerful words of wisdom shared here.. That quote would be well to be remembered by all in this life... it would make the whole death thing a lot easier for everyone! <3
With Love
Hart Floe Poet
♥
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I've actually read this at a couple of memorial services. It is universal and seems to bring comfort no matter the circumstances.
Our society has an unhealthy avoidance of death, rather than accepting it as an inevitable part of life. This quote brings that back home, at least for me.
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That brings up a question, if we forget something, or let go of it, was it a shell? And even if it lives forever, not necessarily within us? Hm.
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Well, in this particular case, "the shell, the perishable" refers to the human body, which we shed at death.
Spirit is with us, and within us always, whether or not we recognize it to be so.
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:( stuff like that sticks like tar to the soul all we are left to do is at some point adjust to the weight and polish it into obsidian <3 and yeh the Melon-lime -Pomelo cat rocks at feedback
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Thank you for the kind words, but @mamadini makes it easier with her pieces :)
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<3
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I so heart your soft mushy centre kitteh :)
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Thank you for sharing this here... what an incredibly challenging piece and life occurrence.. I can't even imagine. But, even these terrible things in life still have their place and purpose in the grander scheme of things... as twisted as that seems at times.
Always here for support and thanks again for bearing your soul here with this...
Wonderful writing as always. Expressive and emotive.
With Love
Hart Floe Poet
♥
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I write about my life, it's my way of processing -- of seeing what is lurking within and when I get it out I can eat it all anew as transmuted nourishment rather that sitting on a belly of poison.
Thank you for always being so upbeat and sweet. <3
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beautiful beautiful, i feel his beaming at you writing of him even through talk of the gritty, dark one track mind that consumed him. i love you for taking him in and nurturing his soul, that never left him, i know. he loved you deeply.
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