poem of the day 01.22.15

the news

right after you told me the news

that the biopsy tested positive

and we got off the phone

i didn’t know what to do

i just sort of pictured you there somewhere alone

sitting in a stairwell or in a bathroom stall crying

i felt helpless

all of those nights of making sure we ate right

of checking those doors and windows and the oven

over and over and over again

making sure that we were safe and secure

it was suddenly bullshit

none of it mattered

not in comparison to this

i started looking around that office of mine

what’s that cliché?  

it felt like the walls were closing in?

i’m sure they all heard me cursing

throwing chairs around and tossing books against the wall

what if i put a chair through a window?

punched a wall like i’m so famous for?

what if i took this computer monitor

and smashed it to its essential parts?

what would it solve?

that cancer would still be there the next day

instead i put my head on my desk

like they used to tell us to do in grade school

i imagined you back in april

picking up stones on the banks of the thames river

waving to me as i took pictures of london

i surrendered to the fate of the day

i cried like a baby

for the first time in a long time

                                                                        06.19.14/01.22.15