Zach Hannah: “Why I Keep Asking the Dying Men in My Life to Promise Me a Few More Years”

Why I Keep Asking the Dying Men in My Life to Promise Me a Few More Years

Because my earliest memories
are of being promised
the opposite.
Because I know exhaustion
is silent and any words will do.
Because I want to be more
peace than regrets.
Because i am chewing at deficits.
Because I’ve built a life on knowing better.
Because nobody will
ask me.
Because I am death’s pesterous little brother.
Because I know suffering
kisses them with lies.
Because I need to learn how to lie, too.
Because the last time
he lied.
Because I’m a sieve of a memory
glutton,
wanting pictures before they’re slideshows.
Because I’m tired of slideshows.
Because I can’t see faces in my head.
Because father and fading
have been synonyms for years.
Because I’m tired of holding fear’s hand.
in caskets.
Because I come from a land
made of caskets.
Because I am a living casket.
Because I want to be carried somewhere
God’s plan can’t reach
yet.

What are you looking for?