A short story in poem form by R.M. Dolin, 2015
Death is an Illusion
Why does night encase emptiness as if we are one?
Why does light beyond the edge of darkness tease at attainability?
Who are these men? How did I get here?
A heroic cowboy,
a principled man ironically misplaced,
a slave on the run;
what do we have in common outside a beguiled belief we matter?
I can grow corn in the rain forest or stand
in opposition to oppressors,
but riddle me this, at the close of my chapter
does anything change?
Once you agree the answer’s no, we can assess the futility of struggle.
I am not like you. I feel what you watch.
I own the pain you only witness. I’m talking about real pain,
of which you know nothing. I breathe only because
I forget not to. I hear only because
I can’t outrun the voices suffocating my soul. I feel only because
I no longer remove myself from fear. I am not like you.
I have no desire. No purpose. No consequence.
I exist only because you let me – only because it amuses you.
No one can touch me with kindness. No one can
warm me at night. I long ago lost touch with
my hopeless dreams. Almost human,
that’s me in better days.
In rare moments when the past permeates my perimeter,
I almost believe in times when happiness was possible.
You talk while you take.
You exercise your issues as if I were a pin cushion.
I cannot breathe.
I cannot feel.
You argue over my haunted soul but not for what it has become,
only for what it can provide.
Good-bye to me I say at last with empty escape;
devoid of everything including the moment I finally decide.
You bring me heartache.
You bring me sorrow. But in the end
I decide what happens next.
I’m embraced by the numbness of nothing but lack
the endurance to move on. I don’t know you but already know
you don’t care. Not about me.
Never mind.
Why are you here?
Why do you stand between me and my hell pretending to care?
You wager as if I can be owned but I would rather die.
Never mind, there’s nothing you can say.
Why do you pretend to help?
What is it you will take in return?
Why do you seem so full of regret?
When were you ever me?
Talk to me tomorrow about the possibilities of tomorrow
and we will see if it exists.
How old is your soul? Not in years, in torment.
I don’t trust you even though in you I sense broken pieces of me.
I know nothing about you – except that if I breathe
you’ll rob me of my breath
and leave me gasping for the nothing this world provides.
Death is an illusion, a poem of peaceful pretend.
A metaphor in multi-shades of darkness.
Don’t be nice to me.
Don’t pretend to matter.
In the end, there is only the end and I’ll decide about that.
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