Think twice when you say
The void inside of you
Is stronger than me
Go see it
Serve it a nice cup of tea in your best china
And ask it
Ask that all-consuming vortex
Which one of us was closer
Closer to you when you lay freezing on the bathroom floor
- who fed you sugar cubes and diet coke with a spoon?
Was it me, or was it your pain?
Who held your trembling hands when you held blades
and told you it was nonsense?
Who looked behind your eyes
and found a dead rat
and carefully pulled it out
and threw it away in the river?
Who went with you to Yugoslavia
when Europe had cut you in pieces and guillotined your dreams?
Who jumped in front of a train before it could leave with you on board?
Who cried with you in toilet stalls airports hospitals all-night-bars brothels pyramids and city halls?
Who dyed what was left of your hair red in a stained bassinet in a roadside motel?
Who undressed you and put you to bed and straightened the covers and sprinkled stardust on your pillow?
Who dug he grave where you put to rest your dog of twenty years?
Who held dawn down when you couldn’t face the light?
Who held their breath when you slept?
Who shooed away the early birds?
Does your pain send you flowers?
I don’t. I’m closer than that.
