In Loving Memory Rickie Lee Hawthorne
(2014)
Everyday brings a new death in three words give or take Some days I drown
There seems to be a drought in my… but who knows if it is the cause or the result of the war raging within me
The pen must be mightier than the sword For there is nothing that will spill your guts faster than a bit of ink that says
All that I know how to do is write about death without dying and write about life
I wish you had told me that on the good days kissing you would make me think that I knew what happiness was and on the bad days
You were the wind beneath my wings but I was Icarus so all I did
There is something to be said of a true friend One who will pull the knife from your back One who will stitch the wounds
The road is long and winding like nothing you can imagine Too many off ramps to count but too few in hindsight
I see words screaming for attention etched in the lines of your face Let me look closer
Under the weight of life I forget how to breathe and I feel suffocated I hesitantly make peace with the world
I’ve always been at the very least a little caught up on everything about you This idea of you
There is poetry in nature better left to be spoken wordlessly by the breeze
I grew up in a house built in 1937 long before codes and regulations and sometimes
I awoke from a deep sleep and knew the reason was to write I love you
You asked what I knew about you and I thought up a list of twenty things