She isn’t just dead;
that isn’t how she works.

She doesn’t just forget to stop breathing,
she doesn’t just forget to stop moving,
or getting out of bed in the morning

when it’s raining and she can hear
every drop as it hits the asphalt street below.

She isn’t that girl, who stops believing
just because something makes her
question her faith with some unfortunate act
that stops everyone from thinking

she’s got life under control.

She isn’t that girl whose daddy didn’t love her
whose family wasn’t kind to her
whose friends all forget that she is alive
the moment she steps out of the room.

So, she isn’t just dead,

sitting on the floor of her barren apartment
thinking “God, why don’t you stop punishing me?”

And she isn’t just dead, the only noise in the room
the faint tones of Nature Boy soothing her mind
out of unconscious thought that she might be dying.

She isn’t just dead, she isn’t just disappearing,
melting into the cheap wood floor.

She isn’t just dead, she’s your daughter and your wife;
she’s your best friend, on the floor,
melting like rain, or blood from open veins,
disappearing into the ocean of herself.

That isn’t how she planned to die.

Where is her furniture? Where is her life?

She doesn’t just die.

08/17/2008

Author's Note: It's rough. Forgive it, and forgive me too.

Posted on 08/17/2008
Copyright © 2010 Rachel C Johnson