"You can't do whatever" The words out of you Like a drunk leaving a bar for a fresh new last call You were not a man of But did your to offer advice You offered me "You just do whatever" And I know what you You meant that I choose to do, I must not be aimless I not simply spin this globe and go wherever I stick my finger 71% of the time I will end up in the ocean And if I do end up in the ocean I can't do whatever, Better learn to
"You just do whatever"
The conversation came after you asked me heaven Told me that you thought heaven would be to each person And that each person would have own version of it Then asked me mine would be
I was so to tell you, "I don't one" But you nodded head, as if confirming a suspicion that had robbed me of a in some stories You "you don't have to beleive what I believe, its enough to be good. Be good" I will. I will about your heaven Your heaven be the same haircut, forever It be a stick a dog and some distance A lawn always needs mowing A six-pack of pills in those short and your real teeth back Because your dentures could never that bottle opening trick you loved to do The first time you tried it with dentures I had nightmares for a Because I your mouth had fallen off Your heaven, be Austria before the war And after you met grandma It would be cheese sandwiches and blood sausages Other deli meats that would ensure you would never have to entertain dinner guests And I would never be in danger of having my stolen heaven, would be a stash of Problems that you could fix with hands I you tried to fix everything with your hands I remember the difficult I the bandages They like tiny blankets, as if your knuckles had all gone off to bed Walls that like they'd said something to get under your skin And suddenly made to pay for it I know you an angry man Finger tips spent shotgun shells, bleeding smoke cocktails of gunpowder and singed plastic You had what people would call, "a temper" But you loved a joke, if it was on you Something that crack open the walls of your chest and let the wind tickle your heart enough to let you know it was still there You always laugh, didn't always smile You did keep a mental ledger of you called your "send flowers list" I thinking it was a thank you to those who got you good But learned the truth my grandmother added a thin layer of sand to your sandwiches Because you to make your own lunch for work You me about it when you picked me up from school that day You said "Grandma made the send flowers list" And I "Because you love her so much?" And you said "Because I'm kill her" Of course you Your version of meant two months before winter, Having a take in each of her coats a few inches So on the day she need one She with the sudden tightness And you stood there smiling then said "Honey, I you no matter how big you get" She did not And to staple your smile back into a straight face When she told all of your at work that you had to move into the spare room you couldn't stop farting at night You asked me "If I had a heaven, what would it be like?" And I told you that for such a small word, if, is just too big to wrap my belief I would not bend to the But now that I would've Even if it was just to ease mind in the belief That I could be headed to that other place you in I tell you now how my heaven is here It was here, in the gentle warfare of your relationship Grandma Where volleys were back and forth Like hockey between children who didn't care what the stats meant My heaven would have been someone in grade five finally willing to trade me fruit roll up For my tin of My hell was wondering "why?" Why would you give me sardines for My heaven would make you I get the feeling you didn't get to do that very much Through my hell, through the terrors and bloody noses Through the eyes black, back, sneak attack, nap sack and winter coat hijacks You did best to seal up the cracks in my armour and made my heaven here I would have loved to have made you more To make your send flowers just once So I you now my if If there is a Mine would have a post And I could letters to yours The first would read "Hell's not so bad, they pretty let you do whatever"