Deafening silence fills the air
No speaking voices
Laughter, a memory of bygone days
Blank stares or piercing glares
Not the gaiety friendships provide

Monologues running through my mind
Soliloquies when I’m alone
Fodder for an insanity plea
Or an invitation to a sanitarium

The mechanics of the acts
Don’t matter anymore
The substance, evaporating with age
The usual suspects facilitate the fall
Being available and desirable

Pain has become second nature
An occasional wince silenced by will
A tourniquet applied to stop the bleeding
will have to be removed someday

If only we had seen the train
We may not have tried to cross the tracks
Suicide, not foremost in our minds
At least not mine
We should have looked both ways

Dust settling about the wreckage
Pieces strewn far and wide
Recovering body parts essential
in reconstruction; finding the cause

Factoring change in conditions
Growth and development
Existential relationships
Subsequent findings should prove
Life exists outside the box


© F. Geoffrey Johnson, 2003, All rights reserved
First published in smells i see, a collection of poetry and prose, 2004