Same Ending..... Poem by RIC BASTASA

i am confident
that you will read this.
i know that you have been reading
me.

so i am writing this to inform you that
he died yesterday.

Unlike the others, he was not killed,
No, he did not also kill himself because
you know very well that with the way he loves life
and enjoys its zest, he would not
dare pulling the trigger
on his throat.

he died,
the reason is consistent.
even before i left you you already know
what is that reason,

if you believe that he can be forever in love with life
and enjoy its zest,
you are wrong.

he lost control. he went to the wrong places,
took the wrong medicine and live with the wrong people
in the wrong country.

he wants to correct a wrong with another wrong
showing fully well his lost faith in life,


he rebels. he learned to hate poetry. he stopped writing since
then.

sunsets are no longer significant to him.
migrating birds are nonsensical.

he did not like fine dining. he went to the mountain.
perhaps practiced yoga there. brags that he eats only worms.


he comes back to the city to find his wife and two kids.
stays mostly on the sea. had all the salt of this world
and then closed his eyes.


one thing i can be proud about him: he did not kill himself.
you must learn to be brave. Live your life. Do not mind anymore
if you are true to yourself.

it is irrelevant. Happiness too is immaterial.
As sadness is. Same boat. Same river. Same ending.