Window View; Autumn (2015)
Sean Florence is an artist and illustrator from western Connecticut.
Dog (2015)
Sean Florence is an artist and illustrator from western Connecticut.
I slipped out the back door
where a white limousine was waiting.
The driver informed me
there was a very large thermos bottle
in the back seat of the limo that I
could urinate in should the need arise.
I found this information less than useful.
It would have been easier to put
a worry blanket around my shoulders,
but then things could have become too warm,
like the person who adheres to conformity
after years of feigning credulousness.
The dream of coming home to you
is a dead dream, and it’s been dead
for quite some time. I am who I am,
but I am also who I was. Improved?
Yes, but I haven’t forgotten who I was,
and I live with that every day. I won’t
apologize for the mistakes I’ve made
because those mistakes helped me
become who I am. Why should I feel
sorry for doing what made me who I
am today? Why live under the chance
that I could have been someone else
had I not made those mistakes? You
are a ghost to me these days, who
comes to me late at night, on my
sleepless nights, where I stay awake
and ramble on and on and on and on
and on about you, and those days
are few and far between. Buckshot,
missing the target I’ve locked on to,
but spreading about everywhere.
For the stings of injuries dealt to me,
I also dealt to you several injuries.
Should I be forgiven? Probably not.
Do I forgive myself? Never. That’s
not the point. The point is that we
are who we are, and I don’t know
you anymore, but I know myself
more than I ever did before. So,
when I die, don’t grieve. Just lay a
half-empty pack of Pall Malls and
a bottle of Wild Turkey and a copy
of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” atop
my corpse. And I give you permission
to drink out of my skull when I’m dead,
as long as you believe that I never in
my life meant to hurt anyone, ever.
