anniversary

i don't want to share this moment
with anybody
it is happening now
wood fire rages,
and the calendar
strikes the hour when
you were captured
bound, and thrown
into your own trunk
strangled
with rope
and tossed
to cold philadelphia
pre-dawn streets
beneath a freezer truck--
while miles away
i slept
in the pits of my existence
propped up against a locked apartment door
cold tile hallway
no one inside

me--i have come
immeasurably far
from that space and
time

i
can't believe
you chose death
when i asked for your hand
in healing

i want you, i said all those years ago
on a peyote pastel afternoon
you and i, together, without the drugs.
you were frank. you can't have that.
this is it for me. i'll party until i die.

you loved me as best you could
after that
but you knew you had to
let go

something
i still haven't learned...

i used to beat my fists
against the ground
and cry out about how you promised
to always welcome me...
call you a liar...
curse my luck for losing someone i
loved purely...

but sooner or later
i began to stand straight
and accept
that though i never saw
your faded face resting
on your casket pillow
still and eternally
you are gone