I sleep with lights on
Always afraid of the dark
But I’ll follow you
bad poetry
Music Monday | Sleep Baby Sleep – BROODS
A friend I haven’t heard from in a while got in touch today. Our contact is sporadic but consistent. I have loved him in all the ways it’s possible to love someone over the last 21 years. I love him still. He’s had a rough month; a sliver of the hard news, his cat passed away in his arms a few weeks ago.
I once wrote a poem about her. Or about him. Or about us. Whatever it was about, it was called:
His Cat
His cat is whoring herself
out to anyone
with a warm lap.
She chews on a belt loop
and looks up
disgruntled
when prodded to stop.
She sighs, stands, turns around and
returns to sleep.
It is surreal
or perhaps just
unreal
to think that life could be
like this.
It can’t.
She wakes again
his cat
murmurs and bathes
without leaving my lap.
Circa September 2010
Sleep, baby Piper. You were loved. You will be missed.
Industrial Accident
A brown velvet nose presses into the crook of my elbow
Paws rest against my aching arm
Locked into position by his warm body
I shift, try to roll, uncomfortably
Today there is no comfort
Seven years old, my cat snores, not purrs
A soft gurgle, followed by
Chirpy, high-pitched wheezing
I worry I have given him lung cancer
From when I used to smoke
I worry he is in pain
And I don’t know
I worry he will get hit by a car
If he escapes outside
I worry how I will cope
When he dies
But I’ve never worried about him
Outliving me
Until today.
Music Monday | Crystals – Of Monsters and Men
The words are lost inside me.
Stuck behind the lump in my throat.
Self-prescribing, I’m imbibing.
I have to let it go.
The rolling darkness echoes with hopes crashed on the shore.
Will it ever, can it ever be the way it was before?
Snippets & Glimpses 
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