@Mourning
Tell us why you are sad/not sad
Mad/not mad
Conflicted/devastated/glad
That ________ is dead
(*click here for thread*)
So we can tell you why you’re wrong
It’s wrong to say
You celebrate
(Would you, in public, masturbate?)
The dropping of a megaphone
That magnified
(*buffering*)
Your suffering
To die is saintly
Faintly praise
Or raise them up
Or raise a cup
But never celebrate/debate
Or mirror hate
It’s wrong to say
You found your way
By looking through the glass
Of a villain
Once they pass
It’s wrong to dance on graves
It’s grim
To tap it down
To trap it down
The danger found
In words that sound
An awful lot like
“Wish you dead.”
It’s wrong to cry instead
It’s wrong to mourn collectively
Performing grief connectively
That’s built on something real
But monetized
It’s ill advised
(*click here if you don’t like this ad*)
And tell us why you’re sad/not sad
It’s wrong to send out thoughts and prayers
It’s wrong to swear
It’s wrong to joke
It’s wrong to *poke*
It’s wrong to pour one out and shout
“It wasn’t fair!”
With heaven gone
(We’ve walked the stars)
Our rituals are sold in stores
That have no buildings any more
These seances of clicks and clacks
Won’t bring them back
And more than that
You’ll get it wrong
°•○●■¤▪︎■●•°
Sweeter
The bees, they say, are dying My grandmother, they say, is dying
True, I see them less True, I see her less
Than when I was a child Than when I was a child
Before I knew Before I knew
To calculate To calculate
Their value Her value
In contrast to their sting In contrast to her sting
I try to keep my eyes squeezed shut I try to keep my eyes squeezed shut
Hands over ears Hands over ears
Pull curtains tight Pull curtains tight
Live in small boxes Live in small boxes
Ecosystems Ecosystems
Of bedroom, bathroom, TV room Of bedroom, bathroom, TV room
I know I will miss them I know I will miss her
They way the made things sweeter The way she made things sweeter
The way they gave us life The way she gave me life
When the flowers forget to bloom When the flowers forget to bloom
And there is no way And there is no way
To bring them back To bring her back
°•○●¤▪︎□□○•■●•¤
My Time in Space
He is a scientist
What’s more
An engineer
And he can hear
The drum, the thrum,
The humming of the gears
And he can tell
(like the top was popped)
What’s underneath
What’s buzzing in my ears
One time he told me
Time
The line
Is not a line
It slips and slides
Like gears that grind
Until their teeth
Are powder fine
Until their teeth are gone
And now I ride a bus to school
A bus that takes me
Back in time
Past places that are not in line
Past buildings where I took up space
The place
That ground me down
The face that I have found
Lost in a sideways eight
I think on what he said
My bed
My teeth
My gears
My years
My head
I hope time is not linear
So they can hear:
The child trapped in the infinite
The halted time of being hit
I whisper to me not to quit
“You’ll be okay
You’ll be okay
You’ll be okay”
I say
Until we pull away
H. E. Casson is an under-watered late bloomer who was planted in suspect soil. Their work has been published in Room, Apparition Lit, Stonecrop Review, Grey Borders, Fireweed, and Jones Av, among others.