Maria Gray
How Dare You Leave Me
Upon hearing the news
of your death,
you are the first person I call
and you are devastated.
The clouds take a day
to catch up, but they weep
with us, too, in time.
Santo, I’m smoking myself sick
without you. How dare you leave me
alone? How dare you leave me, slip
silently from the party without so much
as a goodnight? And how dare I —
how dare I think of me
on this national day
of big nothing, of rope
and pills, the gun’s greasy tip
against your tongue. How dare the world
carry on without you, spin without a thought
to the age-old plight of the sun?
We are such selfish creatures.
You never were. Your first and only failure,
old friend, was your softness, and for that
I could never fault you. There is so much
I need to tell you, but now I talk to you
and I’m talking to God. My stomach roils
with the acid of your absence, the soft curve
of your smirk, the women’s clothes
you soaked with gasoline.
What to do but sit alone
with my poems, circle your corpse
like a vulture, invent new sorrows
to embalm — what to do but live
without you. What to do but live.
of your death,
you are the first person I call
and you are devastated.
The clouds take a day
to catch up, but they weep
with us, too, in time.
Santo, I’m smoking myself sick
without you. How dare you leave me
alone? How dare you leave me, slip
silently from the party without so much
as a goodnight? And how dare I —
how dare I think of me
on this national day
of big nothing, of rope
and pills, the gun’s greasy tip
against your tongue. How dare the world
carry on without you, spin without a thought
to the age-old plight of the sun?
We are such selfish creatures.
You never were. Your first and only failure,
old friend, was your softness, and for that
I could never fault you. There is so much
I need to tell you, but now I talk to you
and I’m talking to God. My stomach roils
with the acid of your absence, the soft curve
of your smirk, the women’s clothes
you soaked with gasoline.
What to do but sit alone
with my poems, circle your corpse
like a vulture, invent new sorrows
to embalm — what to do but live
without you. What to do but live.
Biography
|
Maria Gray (she/her) is a 22-year-old poet from Portland, Oregon. Her poems are published in or forthcoming from Furrow Mag, SICK Magazine, The Lumiere Review, Counterclock Journal, and others. Her poem “Rhythm 0” was recently selected by Luther Hughes as the winner of The Lumiere Review’s annual poetry contest, and she was named as a 2021 Adroit Prizes semifinalist for her poem “Where Were You When Mac Miller Died.” She lives and studies in central Maine. Tweet her @mariakultra and check out her other work at mariagray.carrd.co.
|
