by James Herlihy
Did you know what it was like
To face every day as if it were my last;
To awaken every morning in certain dread
That one or both of you would be gone?
Did you ever wonder how it felt
To contemplate which of you I needed most,
Wanted most, loved most, hated most;
To equate life with pain, love with anger,
Vision with madness … and to consider suicide,
At the cotton-candy-tender age of ten?
Did you question my choice to fall from grace
Rather than risk your well-meant embrace;
My attempts to destroy all that was me
Knowing full well that I could not,
Would not, dared not die … for knowledge
Of the pain it would have caused you?
Can you feel the love that burns in me still
Like Hell’s own caustic fury,
Unleashed in anger and expressed in words?
Will you let my love fall like dead leaves
Upon gravestone ears, or will you hear my cry?
Would you know me, hold me, love me now,
Despite all that I am and all I will never be …
Did you ever wonder just who I am?
The seed never falls far from the tree.
James Herlihy / Coyote Stands
James Herlihy is 53 years old, eldest of 7 born into an Irish-Catholic family. I have written poetry most of my life, as a cathartic exercise. I have been by turns a saint and sinner; in short, human. Currently unemployed mechanic, family man and dog-lover.
