Grief (Rage Final Revision)

This poem is the result of an extreme revision of the poem Rage. I took the raw emotional maelstrom and put the energy into an actual story. Once doing that, I realized that the emotion showed by the narrator might not be so much rage, as grief. I have hopes that this turned the poem into something much better than the original jumble of non-corporeal feelings  

Grief

From the moment you walked through that door,

the tangle of Christmas bells jangling discordantly,

I should have known better.

You pointed to them,

“Trophies from boyfriends of Christmas past?”

Your tone playful, your eyes uncaring.

I should have thrown records at your face

from behind the counter where I stood

until I saw blood,

not laughed, inviting you to stay.

And when you later pushed me against the alley wall,

kissing me so hard it hurt.

I should have smashed the broken bottle we stepped over,

right across the top of your head,

not grasped the fake leather of your jacket

until pieces of the paint flaked off on my palms.

I listened to your stories,

and shed tears.

From your ever lit cigarette

or the bleakness of your tale

I was never sure.

I wanted to fix the pain,

tape up your broken pieces of a life lived hard.

Now I wish I could have destroyed and mangled your heart,

until nothing was left but a crumpled mass.

Because that’s what you left me.

A useless bit of flesh.

But I can’t touch you,

dead flesh moldering in the ground.

Your dirty footprints are scrubbed from my floor.

The taste of you in my mouth has been brushed away.

You deserve to be punished

for all you didn’t leave behind.

They say there’s seven steps

but there is only  this hatred

for everything you’ve ever done.

Every person you touched,

Every argument you won.

The rage rushing through my veins

tells me I’m alive;

reminds that you’re not.

You always were a selfish prick,

everything revolving around you.

But now I’m moving forward,

you’re held back

by the dirt on your chest.

What were you thinking when you

pressed the gun to your skull?

Fuck knows I’ve stopped asking,

I don’t even care.

I just wish it had been me

pulling the trigger, blasting your brain,

one year ago when you first said my name.