at his side
He is not dead.
I love him and I wear him in my heart.
So.
He is not dead.
I know him and I live out his days in my head.
So.
He is not dead.
I am still alive but half-formed because he is not here also.
So.
He is not dead.
Because if he was, I would be too.
The stages of grief: denial.
Poetry is one of the most difficult forms of writing because it follows no set rules and its very fluidity is mean to be questioned and interpreted differently by each reader. Maybe it’s for this reason that I’ve always been drawn to it, the rebel in me yearns to break the rules and rewrite hard to understand truths into easily digestible sound bites. It might be the reason I have never, ever thought to call myself a poet even though I’ve been writing poems since I was a teen. Truthfully, even after publishing this work of poems, I will probably still refrain from usually the epitaph in conjunction with myself. What makes a poet? As with most titles, part of me believes it should be designated by a certificate or the complete of a program, bestowed upon me by the Queen of England like a knighthood or blessed unto me by a priest. But the truth is, love and life make a poet of everyone, even if the words are only felt in our hearts and the rhythms only echoed in the beat of our pulses. We feel so deeply as human beings, I think it’s a natural inclination to desire to put words to those emotions, and whatever words you give them are poetry by nature because every emotion is beautiful and well felt.
So, I supposed I could call myself a poet just as easily as I do others, but whether or not I do, I hope you enjoyed this collection of poems. I wrote them from the perceptive of a man, both because I have always identified in strange and intimate way with the opposite sex, but also because ostensibly, the narrator of this book is King Kyle Garro from my novels, Lessons in Corruption and After The Fall. King is my poet biker, a man who grew up in motorcycle boots with a convicted felon as a father with the forecourt of a garage as his backyard. He is not the type of man who would ever assume would have romance and empathy in his soul, which is exactly the reason he is one of the most beautiful characters I have ever written. Some of these poems are featured in Lessons in Corruption and his subsequent book After the Fall, but most are original to the collection. They tell the story of his life and love from both novels, but they also tell the greater story of someone who is inherently misunderstood because of their origins and who struggles to define himself outside of social mores. King uses his poetry to rewrite himself, just as I think everyone who gives voice to their emotions can rewrite the trajectory of their thoughts and life.