I was 33 when I visited your grave for the first time and
despite all intention I had to piss all over it –
your name, your birth date, your death date,
the stupid fucking grass in that stupid fucking dead memory of a cemetery in bumfuck Washington –
I was instead a kid again and I couldn’t stop crying
my eyes out.

C’est la vie.

They say cancer killed you
but it was only the final blow.
You were already half-buried in a long
history of alcohol, gambling, and women.

I wasn’t surprised. You and I are blessed like that.
We’ve got a bit of the gods in us–the progeny of a dionysian strain
with fire at the fingertips. Fate’s a game we play
when we’re bored and lonely
and you were the most bored and loneliest of us all.

And so you gave up your soul in some cultic offering
until your awful death.
But I’ll succeed where you failed.
You gave yourself to the universe while I have it by the throat.

When you left the first time you taught me about imaginary spaces.
When you left the second time you taught me about reality.
You showed me that dark corners exist in both
and that both are full of monsters.
But I’m not scared.

The passing years have armed me to the teeth.
There’s a messianic drive where you should have been
and it’s shining a light that never goes out.

I’ve got a third eye, a hero’s heart, and a
mind like a thunderclap.
My soul is unshakeable and
I’m natural with a handgun–
Blessed with perfect aim and silver bullets
that fly straight and true,
never stopping until they hit their target.