In A Comment Thread on YouTube
underneath the Album "A Crow Looked at Me"

There was someone who four years ago
Claimed to be a teenager
With terminal cancer,
And they said the album made them
Feel cold and awake.
And it made sense to me, ‘cos
Sometimes it seems like
Only those of us who aren’t dying
Do that hand-wringing thing,
If only because
We feel that we have to -
Meanwhile the one who is dying
Has a different way of seeing.

But I started crying -
Not because of the album
Which I’ve heard several times
And use as a handbook at this point -
But because this stranger who was
Supposedly dying
Said something that was very
Relatable to me
(i.e., Now I care
Because of the thing they said)
And now there is a void left
By the fact that they didn’t
Comment again.

And I’m guilty because I laughed
Through my tears at somebody who
Typed at the silence:
“Dude r u dead?”
And someone else also confessed to
Laughing at that, and people scolded them
And this is actually
One thing I like about people -
This uncomfortable dance we all
Have to negotiate
Because of the absurdity
Of being alive.

Sometimes my favorite
Story of Phil’s
Is the fact that he toured
This death album with Misty and Mering
And repeated the unspeakable
Over and over
To festival crowds,
And then went back to jumping
On beds like a kid
Because what else could he do?
(It’s what I would do.)

I remember that while people
Like to idealize a relationship
Cut short by death,
It’s final days aren’t always what they envision -
People are not always themselves.
Maybe they turn to a god they never believed in,
Maybe they retreat
Into the childlike and overly optimistic,
As if senile,
Their punk intellect turned simple and smiling.
Maybe they start to comport themselves strangely
Because it doesn’t matter anymore.
Maybe they spend more time
With the internet than the families
They’re leaving behind.

And though it’s most likely
That teenager who commented is now gone,
It’s also possible they weren’t
Who they claimed to be,
Or maybe they just kicked the cancer
And pissed right off of YouTube,
And I’ll say it again:
I really know nothing
And whatever I’d last expect
Is probably what it is.