GRIEF Poem: What Does a Writer Do?, by Ruggeroli

What does a writer do when their agony is far too much to write;
when the pain they feel makes putting into words, too much a fight,
when their heart is sagging across the sidewalks and streets,
when their lovers can’t even console them to sleep?

My friend from a world not so long ago is gone.
She was yellow and had a raspy laugh that made me smile.
She was from another world, galaxy, and beyond.
And now, she’s gone.
I’ve mustered every ounce to write out this pain;
to make a rhyme and use iambic pentameter all the same.
But I’ll bend the rules to my grief. I’ll make things differently and you’ll nod and be polite
while I have sadness growing all around me in spite.

What does a writer do when the very thing that gives them comfort causes grief?
She took pills and choked on her bed all alone.
The bed we had sleepovers on or that she’s talked to me while on the phone.
She killed herself and I texted her two days prior.
And now I am a writer losing my fire.
My flame, all my words in vain.
The funeral is in five days.
I haven’t got the stomach to show
Haven’t got the funk out of my flow.

Mortality is flirting with my soul as if it’s going to catch me.
It whispers seductively in my ear “You’re writing is not enough to top the harassing”
You see, the writing keeps me safe;
A barrier around this place.
This place that I don’t want to go,
where I think of how my friend died all alone.
All by herself because mortality chatted in her ear
But I had my writing to keep it at bay
Now I lost my Goddamn flame
My fire my heaven my source of inspiration
Now I listen to mortality outside my door
Inside my head
Telling me that my poems are dead
More dead than Jenna girl
Oh God forgive me for using her name
But I can’t even write without my flame
Tell me! I beg! What does a writer do in such dread?
What does a poet conceive in pain in misery
when no words can properly express
that mortality is a two-headed mistress-
take her away far from my bed!
Keep morality out of my head!
I plead with you! I urge your help!
What does a poet write when they are in such grief?
When they are frantic in their displeasure and disbelief?

My flame may spark at a few of these rhymes and witty remarks
But not as much as the pain does in my heart

Author: poetryfest

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