Sightings

Everyday I break a new string,
It seems like sorrow is the only thing I ever see.
Rationalizing the sorrow used to work,
or so I thought.
Unfortunately it seems to be the same with
transmuting it all into music and art.

Is it a load that must carried?
Is it some genetic deformity?
Is it just the emotional weather of our time?

For months I have awoken with swollen eyes,
sometimes it is so bad,
that they will not open,
and will just sting and tear.

Many mornings I awake mid-sentence,
calling a name to which I've had to say goodbye.

I swear I've heard him, meowing from the threshold between waking life and dreams..
Even though I know he's gone,
when I awake and find his name in my mouth,
I do not stop from shame,
but instead call out again,
and let him know I love him,
and I miss him.
Every stupid fucking day.

and I know the sorrow is not his fault,
I guess it was just the thing that broke the wall.
A stupid fucking cat,
that was never even mine.

I had never held something dead before.
When they brought him back from the vet,
they put him in a fucking plastic bad,
like worthless trash.

I ripped the fucking bag to shreds, I cursed this plastic planet, and held him close to my breast.
I dug his grave deep.
He was warm,
Id have given my own life right there and then if it meant he would just open his eyes.
But he never did.


I go out to visit his effigy in the yard from time to time.
I curse the weeds which seek to eat the effigy and erase his memory.
I curse the fucking weeds which only choke and take advantage of other living things.

But on this morning,
waking to eyes stinging swollen shut
with my mouth full of his name.

I hear his sickly breath.
It was hard for him to breathe at the end,
and I'll never forget the sound,
and even though I know he's dead,
that I put him in the ground,
I hear his stuttered struggling breath.
Even as my eyes are still unwilling to open,
stinging and swollen,
I haphazardly arise and extend my ears while focusing on the sound.
... it is coming from his effigy.

I go outside and it is even louder now,
but the quality of the sound is different,
it is similar but not the same.
And there upon the branch above his effigy,
was the Owl which shared my grandfathers last thanksgiving meal with him and I.
Silently watching, perhaps he too was unknowingly saying goodbye.

I stood in awe at this Owl mimicking the breath of Bubs.
He just stared at me, his big endless black eyes.
He cooed, making that similar sound a few more times, before flying off out of sight.

It didn't bring relief.
Normally it would have,
it SHOULD have,
but all I feel is grief.

God even these words,
are just an absurd unconscious attempt,
to mend the heart and the head.

On second thought,
maybe they do bring relief.