For the weekly We Write Poems prompt.
The Walking Dead
Once you slurred me the story
of your overdose – your heart
stopped on the cutting table
before the doctors brought you back
to life. You never got over it,
prone to random fits of rage as if
they’d failed to reconnect your soul,
as if your heart resented
the resurrection, begrudging its beating
as much as you dreaded getting out of bed
each day, rising only to the stiff hope
of another drink to recreate the escape.
How I wished you’d go ahead and take
your reservation in some dowdy afterlife
bar like you’d been trying so hard
to do for all those years, so you
could reminisce in a ghost-webbed booth
and knock ‘em back for all eternity, dirty
shot glass clacking against the decay
of your teeth, chipped and gray
as old bathroom tiles.
mareymercy. 
Wow! This is very gritty, seasoned work! “dowdy afterllife bar” — what a great image along with “ghost-webbed booth” Very nicely crafted!
Thank you!
Brilliant! It’s spooky and unearthly without losing any of its realism. And so many excellent phrases in here, from that first “slurred” onward, setting the acid tone.
Thanks!
I am utterly speechless. I felt as if you were writing about me, except for the slicing and dicing heart part.as well as the not getting out of bed and going to hells bar. This poem is like your perfect parallel bar routine, a graceful dismount, and the finale, “And here comes the judges scores, OMG, perfect tens. Man she really stuck it!” (Crowd noise here with roaring applause, down curtain, exit stage left.} What a performer you are.
Regards,
Don
Thank you! This was always an odd one to me. It ends with a strange image and kinda just dies…kinda like the person though. Just a long sad miserable life with a pathetic ending. That’s the way it is for some, unfortunately.
Cynthia, I hope you do not mind but, after looking at your photographic work on blog lines kept running through my head an d I wrote them down. Who is Cynthia Cox. If rather I will remove them.
Regards,
Don
I LOVE THAT POEM! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
Fantastic.
Thanks, Dana!
Wonderful, Cynthia !
Thank you Uma!
Wow, this is great! I love the sounds and the rhythms in this poem. Dark, powerful images.
Thank you 🙂
wow . . . I love it. Darkness, bitterness (on both sides), so many clever twists of words . . . it’s difficult to decide who to pity or despise most. True humanity. Well done.
Thank you 🙂 !