Poem by David L O’Nan Writing Suicide Notes in the Bluebird

Writing Suicide Notes in the Bluebird

(this version originally published in Elephants Never December 2019)

I was writing on notebook paper
Red-bumped tongue sticking like glue to the roof of a dry mouth
December weakens me
My bones and all my thoughts
Can’t dream in the pillars of orgasms
When our ecosystems begin crashing in declining health

I freeze to your scars
And grew hungry in all of your fears
The stairs and the elevators
The storms and the sun

While around me walks all the men in current disguise
They seem to have decided to join the Ted Bundy billionaire boys club
Suave and sadistic, leave women puking or pouting
I stand upon a damnation hill
Watching the moon fail me, to bring a slight light to the loneliness
As my pen weakens in ink.
Thoughts begin to melt over the table like a shot snowman onto the windshield
Of frosted over flash,
Streetlamps coughed dim light over white pruned-in roads
Mushed in and slick

While the feeling of we all die dance like a parade
That is not a lie as we hold the umbrella and march
Sometimes, we can cartoon our own demise
We can shovel the dirt
Missile into our lungs the cold breath
The air of an avalanche lingers over our heads

All of the loves I’ve had
Are banshees of screams
That are cynical in their echoes
The beauties, the art, the maniacal inkblots
The dresses always sway off into the wind
Becoming bare skeletons that merged into a God-claw cloud
Away from me at least,
In their own heaven
In their own world wherever that could be
With other voices that know more poetry than I
That sing sweeter than the last drop of red wine
It’ll hit the glass

I would kneel these weak legs down to prayer
Only to feel the spikes
And God was left baffled by the shaky knees
As you try to lead love back to a lie
Your bravery feels lost
And look at the cost
Now look whose skeleton is beginning to show through
Your bare soul, do you have a claw to reach for?

I look down to the letter
It is empty of content
And the body is hungry
Stomach feels crippled
Order the special
Worry about the demise on
A different lunch hour. 

 “Before the Bridges Fell” by me David L O’Nan Poetry book is out today on Cajun Mutt Press 

Available Now: Before I Turn Into Gold Inspired by Leonard Cohen Anthology by David L O’Nan & Contributors w/art by Geoffrey Wren 

Bending Rivers: The Poetry & Stories of David L O’Nan out now!  

Fevers of the Mind founder bio: David L O’Nan (WolfPack Contributor)