When I Die (a poem)

When I die, I want to go quietly – free from the miseries

of my body breaking down, organs sickened,

cutting off life as drift away.

When I die, I want to wake in a better world,

away from earth’s torments + the adverse emotions

gurus say we must bear.

The Pale Woman (a poem)

Down the winding path, you go deep into the forest –

the dense birch trees make it so dark that only

a faint light breaks through and illuminates

the leave-strewn path.

You were told to avoid this place – a place

where corpses dangle from branches and

lay twisted on the forest floor, their faces

stuck in a final moment of eagerness to

kill a lifetime of sorrow.

Death has come knocking,

quietly at first and now with a shout

that rattles the planet –

My instincts are conflicted: for so long,

I have craved oblivion, but now that it’s here

there’s a fear that plays with the chemicals

in my broken brain.