Dead Hope Kids

You crawled out of your shell and cried for the fifth time that week,

cradling the thoughts of departed on a crowded bedroom floor,

wondering if warmth really came from rubbing elbows with reminiscence.

We were sea faring warriors against the waves we made in our eruption,

knowing a collision was demise as depicted in dictionary.

---

I fought to maintain a light in a dark room.

You wrapped it in pillows to smother it out with the last comfort you knew,

afraid the rays were the eyes of an appointed god barreling thru the front door.

Seen the newspapers in piles where the dates climb forward

but the frame that lies on the ground has yet to age a day.

Folded over are the letters lost to lovers and friends that wept but had no say

when submarines couldn’t match the depth you discovered

far below the capabilities of the ocean’s dreaming.

---

“Burn it down,” softly spoken voices called

where the colored dots on the windowsill failed to reach

and teach about the lessons of isolation.

---

You thought to cut it out was to cut to the bathroom tile,

the gray changing hue with the season as the departed returned with falling leaves,

the silver in the wastebin the dead skin you shaved off,

hoping the recollection tattooed on experience was a volcano’s mountainside;

a flood of water and nature would cover the creases,

easing the trembling,

nullifying the quaking

as you’re still shaking at the stray mention of names or places in photographs.

---

I fought to maintain a light in a dark room.

You wrapped it in pillows to smother it out with the last comfort you knew,

cursing wordlessly at statues forever rooted in your field of vision,

and in the moment where we touched,

I knew I would never be where he stood.

---

The departed hold the line and you’re always afraid of looking past.

The dead have hands wrapped around your ankles.

“Fall into” the softly spoken voice starts to scream.

“Give into,” the voices are all screaming.

The dead beckon you back.

The dead beckon you back.

---

With legions ahead in the foyer,

there’s no rescue to the side of your bed,

where you’re shivering in the heat of cluttered memories,

and I knew I would never be where they could be,

and you were never going to be the same.

( ❤ Mitch)