since Jim gave me permission

When the time comes,
the calls will be made,
the date will be saved

It'll be like I'm getting married,
only I never could commit to anything

It'll be like I'm graduating,
despite the fact that I was a serious pupil
in the school of Realism

It'll be like the emancipation proclamation,
but I was the last slave in chains,
beat and whipped until I was strange
and misshapen

and when the mission bell rang out,
and the soldiers arrived with the decree,
and the tools to implement the policy change,
it was too late,

I was no longer I, I was redacted off
the ship's manifest of cargo

there is no sailing beyond the sea,
no sitting on a cloud somewhere,
no better off

there is only absence,
inexplicable,
tragic

the imaginary number of zero

So yes, you can come to the party

You can talk to people you haven't seen in years,
hear lies from my friends,
and unbelievable truths from my enemies

you can network, and cry, and laugh

and you can dedicate it all to me

but that's the biggest lie of all

because there is no me

At that point, the sentence stops with a period,
and there is no story with that character after that.

I've gone imaginary like norse gods, faerie, satyrs
and innocence

I am abstract

no longer concrete

no longer real

so you can remember,
but what you remember is you

don't pretend otherwise

this is all for you

I was never
that man,
and now I'm never
again

So you can cite in a moving, stirring eulogy
your argument against mine,
but just because physicists believe energy
can't be destroy, only changed
doesn't mean that I'm still around, floating out there somewhere,
just beyond your range of hearing,
right in the corner of your eyes when you get tired

this isn't true,

I no longer exist

I'm just a memory in your brain

which means that I'm you

you may still exist

but one day, you'll disappear too
___________
two minute version//
will revise later.

-o-