The Dying Words Of My Last Friend

Here it is, liberation!

He's got tubes coming out
of every orafice
and he can't talk
because he's too busy gasping.

And I think, here it is, death -
my chance to witness

And his soul doesn't come out.
He just lies there, dead.

Man, I beat his chest.
Where is that fucking soul?

I scream man where is that fucking soul
so fucking loud the nurses come in
and take hold of me
and caress my head
and I'm like man, why are you caressing me?
I'm not dead.

The windows are sealed.
His soul could not have escaped.

And I break away from the nurses
and beat his chest again
WHERE is your fucking soul?

Because I know this man was someone
not the man I sat with
in cafés drinking absinthe with,
nor cigarette after cigarette,
shared dying with.

And slowly I clock it.

No more conversations
about nothing, no more
drinking without purpose,
no more talking about women
and dying
no more no more
no fucking more.

And then I don't beat his chest
anymore asking for his soul,
I touch his dead skin, clammy.
And I'm sick because it's the skin
of a dead man.

What is this shit in front of me?
Where is my brother, where
is my friend?

I can't howl like a primative
because it was friend,
he was my friend
dead, he is my friend
still,
he is dead
he was my friend
and his last words
were the last I will ever hear from him.