I have never been to a funeral.

I have never had to sit in cold-wood pews or
stand among parachuting raindrops,
words of pseudo-wisdom and condescendolence echoing against
glass ceilings, humid air or deaf ears,
or deaf ears,
or deaf ears.

I have never had to peer at closed caskets lowered into earth pits
(Schrodinger-like paradoxes tumbling with the lost
tumbleweeds of my empty mind).

I have never felt the pain of indescribability;
surging, swirling, scathing emotion spilling to a stand-still from
eyelids too scared to stay open because then I must be awake,
this must be real, it must be the end.
It must be the end?

I have never been to a funeral,
but with every unlingering second and
handful of sand and
breath (deep breath) and
sigh (oh God) and shaky ex-hale,
I come closer.

I come closer to those days that pass by without blinking,
blank calendar squares dancing in circles around my body but no, not my body.
This cannot be her body.

I come closer to a head heavy and lumbering,
lolling desperately among a shoulderless crowd,
saline streaked and
catastrophe.

I come closer to ash-black fingernails and grey-faced clocks,
to open-mouth tears and
crumbling (crumble) crum-buh-ling knees.

I come closer to numbness hysterical, colliding into me,
smashing hurricane cries and I become a torrent of hot grief,
I become a burning flood. I am burning, burning flood!

And I believe I am losing it.
And I believe I have lost it.
I've lost it, (I've lost it all).

And I see her now;
chemical beauty, sweet and red.
She is soul-less goddess, my silent sigh moon,
Formaldehyde smooth cheeks run with blood from my open palm and
her eyes are open and she's dead,
she's dead,
she's dead.

I have never been to a funeral,
but I keep calling her name, I keep looking for her.