PHOENIX

By Cathy Briel

I loved my dog

I miss my dog

I don’t miss my family.

I ran from them at times....

The fall down the stairs

with pills fizzing in her guts,

listening to the last breaths

glottal in the closing throat.

Buried on her sixteenth birthday

I smiled at the grave i never returned to.

Another leaves,

but there is no heroism in the drowning river.

Just the slow melt of flesh

and only teeth to tell just who you are.

I gave a sigh of relief

leaving the closed ward

after the last recognition.

One remained...

the most difficult, the longest journey,

her anger only subdued by drink...

yet succumbing in the end.

I watched the yellowing grey,

the final slow sag

and drove home with a flat tyre

and the police at my door.

Suicide is a dirty bomb.

The victim and the bystander blown apart,

too numb to love or hate

time passes

but there is no reprieve.

It is the measure of all deaths.

While others nod and sigh,

I stand unmoved.

I am the cuckoo in the nest

the last one standing

with ashes at my feet

waiting for the transformation.

#darkpoetsclub