Do You Know Death by Nikki Rountree
You know, Death, can be a very scary thing
Death and the Grim Reaper having their fling
A snap of  Death's finger and then **** you are gone
There is always this battle between how we want to keep them
And when God wants them home
Oh, Death, do you have a heart at all
They are here one day and then they're gone
I'm perplexed--just like others I start thinking, who's next
Dare I say that you are not very complex--at best-- I would call you simple
Oh death, you are no friend
because we know eventually you will win
Grim Reaper, yes, that's your identical twin—
always creeping around looking for his next victory to win.
Death, I don't have to see you coming to know that one day you will.  
You and that reaper---always asking, "Can I keep her?  Can I keep him?"
As the old song says and I am glad to sing it to you --Weeping may endure through the night, but the joy comes....in the morning.
Mourning--no one can tell you a timeline. No one can countdown the days you grieve
Mourn at your own pace; there's no race,
but also seems like there is no reprieve
Death--we know you are real-I believe I do believe
Death-- you know that you have power in the tongue
It's said that death comes in threes- please don't take another one
I was told to write this poem...thinking it might take my sadness away
Spill my feelings by putting pen to paper;
Drying up my tears as I spill my thoughts like—
a person spills the beans
Releasing the ink that will break the link;
that makes me wonder what all this means
But then in the twinkling of an eye, you make us have to say good bye.
to the ones we love
Oh Death, today will be the last day I shed a tear
because this poem has released me
to no longer have any fear
over losing what's held so dear
Because, just as much as we hate the loss
It's inevitable that we not become lost
Live life to the fullest each day
Tell the people you love
how much you love them in every way
Because as you can see, if you don't, you won't have time
and death will come when it’s the very last thing that’s on your mind.
Like I asked....Do you know death?

Where anger and grief learn to handle their frustrations
Where your mind sits down and tends to complications…

Where truth and lies stand on equal footing
Where ambitions and doubts do their pulling and pushing

Silence is…
Chaos and calm
Spiritual balm.
The abyss where you can find both,
healing
and harm.

I've never wanted
Something that burns my soul more.
Narcissistic *****.

Nothing is moving tonight, the air is utterly still
A vacuum- it is the milkman’s hour but not even the static whizz of his battery disturbs us
Everything is steeped in silence, there are dusters in the ***** pipes
I open the window looking for a draft but even the street outside is flattened by it
It weighs all around, we are like dried leaves pressed between pages in a forgotten book
Where has everything gone?

I drift back to the edge of my dreams for a moment and in the corner my therapist sits- *****, grey and cold as death she watches. To her right is a tall walnut wardrobe, like the one in great grandma’s back room that held all the monsters as a child
Then its heavy weight suddenly lurches across the floor, a wrench and scrawl of noise then it tumbles in thunder and I jolt awake as it races up the stairs to my door
What is it?
Hiding under the silence
Now the house is hot and heavy as ever, and I open more windows
And reluctantly the air moves a little but still I can’t sleep

1.
I’m heading to the sea
in a slot not big enough to fit a holiday
so I’ll day
trip

I think I’m packed:
a mind still rattled by life and lockdowns?
check
a palpable desire for vistas unknown?
check
a rucksack of memories, of sand, of wafer cones,
of wasps, of crystalline, sweet wrapper lights on mad, unsafe beach rides, on windbreaks, on digging, on seaweed and brown British waves?
check

Let’s start this engine, then

2.
Should’ve gone before we left
the irony’s not lost on me
even though I’m now the boss of me
I’ve still had to stop in local circles
cos someone needs a ***

I’ll blame the coffee

3.
Frightening fast the local roads fade
the five and ten mile loops of life
are gone
and the roots we commute and commune on
rest bone rigid, obscured

Passing Crowland
impossibly flat plains
thoughts turn to darkness
and misunderstood witches lost here
until the smirk of Cowbit assuages

Only the Welland, alongside
still talks of home
til even she changes
speaks in wider verbs
tidal verbs of ebb and flow
showing thick mud beneath

These long, straight roads are deceptive
leaving meanders to river and mind
while hiding accidents in plain sight

4.
The road sentence ended
and after chewing a space to park
shoes changed to something wholly uncool
but fitting me well
first steps on the unsure grammar of sand
reminding that syntax here takes much more effort

a dune cleft gives a known view
I’ve never seen before
and then I’m through

sky and horizon blast me

for frozen moments I’m lost,
these common seas I shrug off in my head
smirk at
as nothing against turquoise
or rock raged waves
still bring tears
against my smile

I listen at the language in the shallows,
the rush and hustle,
and feel a glimmer of foreignness as I can’t make out the message
but I get the gist

5.
To honour holidays of old
I sat a spell in Wolla Bank car park
though inauthentically the rain didn’t fall

I was forced to imagine the windscreen steamed
and had no fish paste on white
as I’d paid full price to eat at a cafe
unheard of back in the day

I did read the car park info sign
about the clay pits around
where historical sea defences were mined
and that did the job of taking my mind back

and the closing thought of petrified trees
beneath the waves til very low tide
did its best to haunt

6.
Heading home
wistful I suppose,
though I’m not sure where I got all the wist

the sea is a keeper of memories
a chewer and cogitator
so when they return to the shore
and are spoken again
what you thought you knew back then
may have changed
deepened, softened
and hopefully your youthful idiocy
is allowed to be forgotten

if you came for the ride
thanks, as ever, for joining me x

when you're on
the window ledge of life
people tell you
go see a psychiatrist
(get yourself some therapy)
I've been here a while
haven't drawn a crowd yet
but people are starting to notice
(I'm pretty unobtrusive)
even my own mother
didn't recognise me once
(she's part of the problem)
but that's another story
as I say been here a while
and I'm starting to enjoy
the view
if you don't look down
where all the problems are
but take in the horizon
crazy isn't a bad place to be
I see sunsets
flocks of birds
cloud formations
moon phases
starting to go ancient man brain
starting to cure myself
all that **** below me
doesn't matter
the cars, the people, the noise
pollution, war, ******
I've started to make
the ledge my home
moving in
I can jump any time I want
but find myself needing
another sunrise
blinding light of today
gradually illuminating a world
that really doesn't deserve it
people want me to get therapy
so I can live in a crazy world
how does that
make any kind of sense

Beam me up, she said,
Mary Poppins  I have read,
Pet advocate was she,
I'll feed my birds, signed me!

How do you tell someone you’ve ****** over many times that you’ve changed and you are sorry?

You beg and plead and make promises you’ve made before
But it’s clear they’ve had enough, and they won’t take no more

You tell them your sorry and buy them gifts.
That’s still not enough friend, their love will continue to drift.

You give them their space in hopes it will make them miss you.
Odds are you never gave them attention anyway, so that’s nothing new.

So what’s the right answer? What else could you do?

There’s no exact answer as there is nobody the same.
It’s also not guarantee anything will work as this is not a game.

You should look in the mirror and try to see what they see.
Put yourself in their shoes and ask how did they feel around me?

This is not how u can help them, their not the ones who need a correction.
You have to fix yourself, make it consistent  until you like the person you see in the reflection.

Truth is you may not get them back and that’s a hard pill to swallow.
If you fix yourself it’ll make it easier to let go, and you’ll be more confident and happier for years to follow.