My "Inbox" Surprise Today From Steve

i Would Be Fine Without You

“You would be fine without me,”
You once said
as i strangled on the thought.

Yes, thought i, i would be fine without You
like isolated prisoners are fine without sunlight and conversation.

If basic survival were all that were required of me
if the awful exertion of facing each empty morning
became bearable through super-human means.

If life endures in black and white
in songless spiritless flat existence
i would be fine without You.

If tears could heal
if i could hibernate the years away
by immersing myself in work
if the pursuit of escaping misery could distract
me enough to melt your memory
into a dull enough ache
i would be fine without You.

i would be fine without You. Without You, life would be

like Beethoven’s music would be fine on paper
lacking a symphony to breathe life into them

like the cloud-oppressed day is fine without the sun
like the black night is fine without the moon and stars

like ingesting a gourmet meal intravenously

like pressed flowers, absent of form, substance, and scent
with only the memory of what once was

like a vacuous and pointless journey that
leaves me stranded every time i turn to share

yes, i would be fine without You
enduring like a comatose patient
hanging in a skeletal existence.