Breathe-in experience,
Breathe-out poetry.
-Muriel Rukeyser
I met an old friend in England.
We used to be tight, thick as thieves,
But time often ticks friends apart.
Two years and two months had passed by;
he had led me down the wrong path,
abused me, left me sputtering,
Gasping, smothered, and seeing stars:
So I ended it, habit kicked.
Years passed like hours, all ash and dust
I missed his smell, his touch, his taste;
His memory hung over me
like fog those two years and two months.
I never thought to see him there,
but new town means new beginning.
I saw him after a pub crawl
I was feeling mad and restless
and didn't want an argument.
I put him in my mouth right there
Outside in the warm summer breeze
And lit his skinny ass on fire.
It all came back to me again,
the rush, the pain, the disappointment.
But life was good as I breathed in
and blew his ghost up to heaven.
| Euphemism Campus Box 4240 Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4240 |