Pieces of the Soul

by: E.M. Burlingame

These days, they chew me up and spit me out,
leave me bleeding on the sidewalk,
gut-punched and gasping,
wondering when the hell I’ll break.
Each dawn’s a fresh slap,
another name scratched off the list—
Dawson’s gone, squeezed that trigger,
day before we celebrate Christ’s birth.
Figures. He talked big,
said he’d go out swinging,
but it was just a self-inflicted shot,
another dead friend to tally up.

The bones and tendons ache, sure,
those creaking bastard hinges,
but it’s deeper than that—
a cold decay gnawing at the soul,
pieces torn from where no one sees.
Regrets and loss stacked up like empties by the bed,
bottles of pills and bourbon and bad choices,
pools of dried-up what if and if only crusting the floor.
I let Lauren slip away decades ago,
her timeless beauty and that laugh,
sharp enough to cut through my bullshit.
Didn’t chase her. Too busy, too dumb.
Now she’s just a ghost in the haze,
another love I pissed away.

Woke up to a dead actor today, an unmet friend,
Val’s last scene still burning in my head,
and that artless poetic grin fading to static.
They’re all piling up—
sinners, saints, mentors, drunks—
people I never knew but felt in my marrow,
and the ones I did,
their voices fraying to nothing.
The world’s a graveyard of nevers—
roads I didn’t take,
women I didn’t hold,
words I choked on instead of spitting out.
Wanted to be something,
a writer with guts, not this aging hack
scribbling nonsense in the dark,
but sorrow’s closer than the keyboard,
and the lies drowned years ago.

Some days, the world’s a thief,
steals what’s left and leaves me hollow,
howling at the gods in their suits,
cursing their empty hearts and smug faces.
But I still stumble out of bed,
scratch the cat’s ear,
brew coffee strong enough to wake the dead,
sit at this worn out computer
and bleed torment onto the screen—
tonight, maybe the wine’ll project a soft memory.
It won’t. It just can’t anymore—Too many departed.

So I’ll cling to what’s here,
do the work that matters,
believing it’s the only damn thing
that doesn’t twist the knife.
But it’s all borrowed time—
we’re just waiting for the Reaper to cash us out.
The clock ticks like Tyson’s fist in the face,
tomorrow’s blade sharper than today’s.
And when it drops, I’ll be ready—
glass raised to that bony bastard,
telling him to piss straight off.
I’ll stagger on,
bottle in one hand,
middle finger in the other,
laughing like a dog with a bullet in its belly,
because hell,
the grief and dying’s all we’ve got left
to prove they all lived and made us, more.

note: One last for @ValKilmer #ValKilmer. And then, as he told us all to do in his last scene…