On death and dying, on life and loving..

This week has most likely been the most bizarre I've ever experienced. I usually lead a simple life, devoid of traumatic goings-on and therefore, live vicariously through the lives of the characters on the pages of any good novel/memoir. This week was different. Fuck different, it was terrible. Here's why...

This week, I learned that one of my good friends hung herself in her boyfriend's bathroom because he found out she was cheating. She had gotten laid off, used the boyfriend to pay her bills for many months, began seeing someone else on the side, got caught --- the boyfriend naturally wanted every dime she borrowed from him, he threatened her, shouted, and left angry and went out for a much needed drink. Well, that drink turned into a 12 pack and five years of therapy when he came home to find the money she had borrowed on his kitchen table and the now ex-girlfriend dead in his bathroom.

I then learned that a co-worker, another good friend of mine who is a former Catholic school principal, a former Brother, who had the balls to come out in the late 80's and leave the order, died from what we think is a heart attack in his apartment yesterday morning; probably not the way he wanted to start the Jewish New Year. Now we are left to sort things out with his partner since most of his family never came to terms with his sexuality. Assholes.

Writers have always used traumatic experiences as a catalyst for important work. We saw that with both the Mercy Seat and with Jarhead. So, amidst all of my shock, surprise, numbness, anger, fear, retrospection, and hope, I came across a poem I had written over the summer that could have been written by me yesterday. The true background of the poem is it allowed me to pour out my feelings on my inability to be married legally in the majority of the US. I felt this poem was now even more appropriate because life is short, too short, and denying someone the right to be happy in a life where life may not last much longer simply pisses me off.

And so, without further ado, my poem.