The Words Of A Dead Man

There are some poems never meant to be read, hidden away in the countless pages of a notebook thrown into the bottom of a book bag or pushed into the nooks of a closet. There are universes a poet snuffs out before they ever have the chance to expand, before they twist themselves into the air and make known what has only ever shown itself in the safety of random words in a forgotten journal.

And then there are the poems that never stay put. The ones that rip themselves from the page and scream here I am! Let me sing! They are the poems a writer hopes will never live past adolescence, that they will remain forever frozen in their world tumbling off its axis. They are the raw poems, the hurt poems. They are the poems made from pain, the ones a poet prays to forget and let die. The ones that never stay dead.

And often, they begin with lines like this:

At my funeral there will be no flowers.