"You just do whatever" The words out of you Like a leaving a bar looking for a fresh new last call You were not a man of But did your best to advice You offered me "You just do whatever" And I what you meant You meant that I choose to do, I must not be aimless I must not simply spin this globe and go I stick my finger Because 71% of the I will end up in the ocean And if I do end up in the I can't just do whatever, Better to swim
"You can't do whatever"
The came after you asked me about heaven Told me you thought heaven would be specific to each person And each person would have their own version of it Then asked me what mine be
I was so to tell you, "I have one" But you your head, as if confirming a that school had robbed me of a belief in some You said "you have to beleive what I believe, its enough to be good. Be good" I will. I will think about heaven heaven would be the same haircut, forever It would be a stick a dog and some A that always needs mowing A six-pack of pills in those short bottles and your real back Because your dentures could never master that bottle opening you loved to do The first time you it with dentures I had nightmares for a month Because I though your mouth had off Your heaven, would be before the war And after you met grandma It would be head cheese and blood sausages Other deli meats that would you would never ever have to entertain dinner guests And I would never be in danger of my lunch stolen heaven, would be a stash of Problems you could fix with your hands I remember you to fix everything with your hands I the difficult days I the bandages They looked like tiny blankets, as if your had all gone off to bed Walls that looked like said something to get under your skin And where made to pay for it I know you were an man Finger tips like 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 would crack open the of your chest and let the wind tickle your heart Just enough to let you know it was there You always laugh, didn't always smile You did keep a ledger of what you called your "send flowers list" I thinking it was a thank you to those who got you good But learned the truth after my grandmother added a thin layer of sand to your Because you refused to make own lunch for work You told me about it when you picked me up from school day You said "Grandma just made the send list" And I asked "Because you her so much?" And you said "Because I'm gonna her" Of you didn't Your version of kill meant two before winter, Having a seamstress take in each of her a few inches So on the day she need one She with the sudden tightness And you stood there smiling then "Honey, I love you no matter how big you get" She did not And managed to your smile back into a straight face When she told all of your friends at work that you had to move into the room Because you stop farting at night You often me "If I had a heaven, what would it be like?" And I you that for such a small word, if, is just too big to wrap my belief around I would not bend to the But wish now I would've if it was just to ease your mind in the belief That I could be to that other place you believed in I would tell you now how my heaven is It was here, in the gentle warfare of your with Grandma Where volleys were traded back and 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 their fruit up For my tin of My hell was wondering "why?" Why you give me sardines for lunch My heaven would you laugh Cause I get the feeling you didn't get to do that much Through my hell, the night terrors and bloody noses Through the eyes black, bruised back, sneak attack, nap and winter coat hijacks You did your best to seal up the cracks in my armour and made my heaven I would have to have made you laugh more To make send flowers list just once So I you now my if If is a heaven Mine have a post office And I send letters to yours The letter would read "Hell's not so bad, they pretty let you do whatever"