if i really cared i wouldn’t write a poem, i’d fold myself up and bleed into the night,
finding a more environmentally conscious way to commit suicide
at least i’d have honor.
Honor from a pair of eyes above
if i really cared i wouldn’t toss and turn, i’d give it all up into the barrel of a gun that could
destroy us all, why not — leave something for future atoms and molecules to reconsider,
something for another race to ponder and learn from
if I really cared I’d send my heart to the government – since they already have my soul and
hope that in my death they could finally be one
if i really cared i’d go back to those 4AM moments when i was 24 and at the height of
imagination and anger and bravado and beauty and i wouldn’t try to kill myself,
i’d try to kill the time that was stopping, the past and future tenses bumping and grinding away
from a center that would surely burst
into the absence of a cell phone discussion or a truly final black midnight summer
if i really cared i’d offer myself up, not because i am important but because i am NOT important
and must face that there are others more important,
yes i’d admit that perhaps there were people or ideas or dreams worth dying for
if i really cared i wouldn’t be a romantic
i would be dead
who can breathe and stand to live among the willful ignorant and the fuzzy frightening conscientious stupidity deemed important
by our newsmen and leaders.
If i really cared they’d be the first to go
if i really cared i’d make sure there was no past so that there could be nothing to learn for a future
that was rooted in today
and wonderment
if not
a beautiful mystery
called
progress
*
Dennis Leroy Kangalee 