Somethin’

Larry, you jerk.
Dying so inconsiderately
in your early thirties.
That’s just so like you.

Did you bother to think?
Did you pause to consider
that you can’t come back
from a fatal heart attack?

You always knew
how to push my buttons,
but now I have no one
to sing Poncho and Lefty with,
let alone Bohemian Rhapsody.

And what am I to do
when it’s one A.M.
and I want to eat breakfast
and talk about movies
and the mystery of women
and strange things no sane person
could ever believe?

I haven’t had a good argument in years.
I haven’t raised my voice
or felt that heat rising up from my neck
in ages and ages and ages.

At the very least you could haunt me,
knock a wine glass off the countertop,
rattle some chains in my garage,
write insults with Carol’s lipstick
on my side of the bathroom mirror.

Is this too much to ask?
Is your new life in the netherworld
so full of commitments
and so rife with activity
that you’ve no time for the world you left behind?

I’m not asking for much.
Just a hint, just a glimpse,
or a faint, vague whisper. That’s all.
Jesus, man. Give me somethin’.

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Tagged as: poems about friendship