Poetic & Spiritual Delinquency in the Modern Age

Hey man,

 

It’s Easter, 2009, and it’s been awhile since we talked last

 

It’s the holiday, I guess

 

That, and a machine-gun mind that rarely settles for anything like peace

 

I was thinking of you and how we used to skip church and get high

and that one Sunday we waited two hours for church to get out

as we sat on the back steps, talking about whatever stupid

kids talk about, waiting for my dad, and it turns out

that Palm Sunday masses are twice as long

 

double the pain

 

and how we couldn’t wait to grow up

and make stupid decisions on our own…

 

well, the holiday made me think of you

and yesterday

and tomorrow

and palm frawns

and stale holy water

 

and I gotta say,

 

I miss you…

 

I thought about that time we got way too drunk and how I puked on the floor

at my stepmom’s apartment so we used pine sol and a vacuum to clean it up,

and how you laughed so hard that you puked in the sink and how

we used Ajax and draino to clean that mess up

 

I thought about you giving me my first hits of LSD

and how we lived at music festivals together,

and how we chased women

and how we tried to solve the world’s problems

sitting at the edge of  a campfire:

the political mess

the suffering

and our concensus that we should just burn it all down

 

I thought about your family

and I thought about your father

and your alcoholic mother…

 

And I wanted to let you know that I’m doing good

Been sober awhile now

Working hard

Doing the only thing I ever wanted to do

You know, write

 

And today I keep thinking of you-

 

Your mad genius

Your wild, menstruating heart

A mini Hendrix on the guitar,

A natural-born poet

And the smartest kid in the class,

Far too sensitive to handle this world

 

And I’m doing good

 

I wanted to ask - How are you?

 

I was thinking about the last time we talked

I mean, the last time we really talked

 

And I told you I went off the deep-end

And ran to California

(about a year or two after you got back from

the land of withering palm trees)

and you told me

“that’s ok, we all

                            have to go off the deep end now and again”

 

and you told me you were ‘hangin’ in there’

 

and then I saw you for the last time after that, and you were out of it

hollow

a shell of the man I once knew

a shell of the man I once loved

 

and I know you’re not too far away

 

-

literally

-

 

you’re ashes are in an urn at the alter we set up for you

in my father’s house

 

that way, you’re always near, and I know this

 

but,

 

still,

 

I miss you’re insane sensitivity and your smart ranting

Your snobbish taste and the trends you set

 

And I miss our hungry lives

adventure for experience’s sake

Always curious,

Forever thirsty for more

And more and more

 

and I don’t know about an after-life, but if you’re there,

I hope you found whatever it was you were looking for

And I was going to say something like

 

“I hope we meet again,” but that just sounds so fucking stupid right now

 

And I know you’d laugh at me if I wrote something like that,

 

 so I’ll stop right here

 

Love,

 

Zach

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 7:03 pm and is filed under 2009 - New Poetry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.