This Is Not a Poem, It's An Obituary

He died young. He died quietly. He was a local celebrity in the narrowest sense, a man born for the purpose, who never looked behind. Or ahead.

Whether it was the drugs or a lover, that made him pay the cost.
In those pleasures that he sought, for the night he felt on top.
And he got it right sometimes,
but that’s the night he lost.

By next day he was dead. Sudden but expected. He woke that morning with an ache in his head. He opened the window hoping for good news, all he heard was the Inner City Blues.

Just like most, he loved the warm sun of summer and the trails through the timber. He loved the white hills in the winter and the ice through the river.

Because just like most, he preferred laughter to crying.

And just like most, he had something going, something that he called unique.

But in the end, his self-pity was showing. As the tears rolled down his cheeks