A poem for Phil Western.

When the dead are gone, where do their secrets go?

I hide them in the salt of my tears under my pillow

A mine of fears, regrets and fantasy

Each crystal contains a phantasmagoric reality

A forlorn man disappears into the cityscape, falls down and bruises ribs under a freeway bridge

Freebases desperation in hopes of deleting a lifetime of emasculation

He purges the heavy remorse in a confessional call to me

The world around him piles on the guilt and shame

Judgment crushes his spirit

The last time we talked, the day before he died, I reminded him of his stellar qualities

His deep compassion and willingness to accept people in their true form

Something he couldn’t do for himself

He was so completely decimated – a shrinking husk

Even though I couldn’t see it, I felt it

Even without much contact, I knew it

He was dying inside

He had been for quite some time

The mantra of self-deprecation rang too loud in his brain for too long

But the truth is –

He’s not the loser

We are

For losing him