Where Truth Goes to Die

Runner-up of My Fair Lighthouse Poetry Prize

Can you smell that?
The warmth of rot
is all that’s keeping us alive.

This is the comfort of decay.

I tried building up a fire
but now it’s all gone out
so I guess this is that final stretch
we always talked about.
The bridge we’ll have to cross.

Can you see around the corner yet?
Me neither.
I wouldn’t call it ‘scared,’
this thing that I am now.
I’d rather not name it.
I wouldn’t know how.

Are you?
Scared, I mean.

Well, you can hold my hand if you want.

The dead won’t keep us alive much longer.
But with this pen we’ll live forever.
We can draw our own cards, see?
This says more about us than lousy bones ever will.

Look how I draw myself: a pirate.
In this form, I can safely say
there’s no place for women on a vessel
and believe it under that black flag.

This fine ink means we’ll be buried
in the black cavity of the cosmos
where truth goes to die
and eternity — infinity — begins.
That’s where things go
when they’re tired of being one or the other.

I’ll see you there.

You can draw us holding hands
if that’s what you want.