thought you were dead but your legs work fine as you trot in with a smile for a woman i’ve never met and an obnoxious appreciation for the latte art
rude, honestly to be dead and then not and flirting with the barista
i thought— but no we were all misinformed and i guess i didn’t show up to your funeral for confirmation
you’ve dyed your hair but i like the new color it's vibrant, lifelike
i don't know what to tell you i pressed my thumbs on the tupperware lids holding my eulogies already
i don't really belong here this afterlife of burnt roasts and wifi passwords
the people that died forgot to go on living in my head
not like this with the same laugh the same awkward sneeze a sniffle from living flesh
wait wait wait wait wait
are you haunting me? fuck that— i have enough anxiety or did i finally lose touch or is this your doppelgänger, see i never was good at faces
imagine all the friends i’ve had that are really five different people the loneliness from never meeting you five different times
no your face is different your nose is askew
you could be a Picasso of my dead friend cubist grief cradling a croissant
and now we’re talking and i’m trying to explain how you look like a friend of mine and you ask what does she do
she was a photographer, i say
was?
well, she died suddenly and out of breath as these things go
oh, you say. i remind you of a dead person?
yes, i say, thinking that’s it’s own kind of wonderful
and you excuse yourself or maybe they call your name and it’s not her name
i don’t know why i thought you’d have her name or maybe one letter apart but not a whole different alphabet of a person
ah well these things happen the dying, i mean
and walking around looking like someone else’s dead
all these glances i get someone somewhere has lost me, too or a close replicate
hello, they’ll say, you remind me remind you to what? brush your teeth?
no, just someone i used to know
reborn in our eyes the dead go on living the afterlife is in my heart or some shit
well that’s no way to end a poem
how about this:
you leave. the door chimes.
outside, sirens. a train horn. the onslaught of rain.
you leave. the door chimes barely over the shriek of earth made beans made espresso. the barista asking about room for milk and i think yes, meaning, make space, meaning pour until it spills.
you leave. the door chimes. i let you die all over again, just to see if this time it sticks.