I Thought You Were Dead Poem by Melissa Joy Chesky

Are you the zombie
I dream of?
I thought you
were dead.
They carried you off
in a white blanket.
Did you hear me
yelling for you
crying for you
in my drunken stupor?
They refused to tell me.
They shrugged off my pleas
pertaining to your health.
I shouldn't have let you
drink that much.
This situation wouldn't be
as haywire.
Relationships would still
be relationships,
tight friendships just as they were.
Lives wouldn't have been
ravaged and broken.
Things would be as they were
if I just hid the bottle
from both of us -
from both of our hungers -
and I wouldn't have to think you were the undead.