I press red oleanders
in between yellowed pages
of a journal bound in black leather
skinned from a frozen heart which had
begged for a simple eulogy

(and a poison bloom is as good as any).

This circulatory system
housed more glue than blood
to mend and hold us together
till your atria and ventricles
turned plastic and glue didn’t stick

(it dried up around my heart instead).

Sorrow drips through IV tubes
dribbling into peripheral veins
just enough to not overflow
into a pen, and onto a page;
no wonder my journal is blank.

(To be a writer then, should I crash and burn?)