Burial rites (poem)

By: j. bradley silence is the only way to eradicate personal pronouns as meteoric 'i's shower across stages and pages, while various atmospheres devour them to the point where their impact is reduced to pebble size.

i want i need i have to i bleed i did this to you and me i can't i…

across the room, printed poems lie corpse still, littering the space, waiting for red pencils and ink to grace each line, ridding the unneeded text until stanzas become knuckled so when they are read, minds learn to buckle under intense metaphor, covering up the meaning the way criminals try to hide the crime to avoid doing time. raw emotion refined to the point where the poem feels antiseptic, offering communion to those who pick it up and read it.

i want i need i have to i bleed i can't i…

there are elegies that come naturally as reality sculpts muses of tragedy to fuel their inspiration. don't canonize the subject. treat them tenderly, honestly, brutally on some of the parts, but always remember to honor the dead. no one ever speaks ill of the dead because they aren't around to provide a witty comeback of some sort. autumn is a nice setting even if they died in the summer. things die beautifully in autumn wind. things are already dead in winter.

i want i need i can't i…

silence is sometimes the only way to explain things that seem never meant to be. murmured voices curving the air into lingering question marks, while pallbearers process coffins to final viewing places, while the faces of the audience read the surroundings. eyes scan the room, buying the lie that dying means saying goodbye because souls don't shimmy from shells and say Hello and thank you to everyone for attending these last moments together.

i want i need i…

it's selfish to interject yourself into an elegy. sometimes, you have to to truly relate to the person you write about so each stanza and line has scoured your veins to where they will properly honor the remains that lie in front.

there is no 'i' when you say goodbye because death is not an exit, only an entrance into something bigger than ourselves.