Nothing
can die if it has not lived.
This poem is a tribute to everything dead that once lived.
Grief is the smoke that trails the wreckage of loss.
& mourning is the only ritual to launder the living of the scent of death.
The smoke is even darker & deadlier when you lose something
that once dances in symphony with your heart.
This is where you hope that the smoke does not choke the living to extinction.
Love is a living thing, & this poem is how
a lover mourns the love that once lived.
Especially this one, breastfed with all nutrients but still failed to thrive.
This is the song he sings when his fingers fiddle
the strings of scars crisscrossed on the wall of his heart.