I have always been drawn to it

before the words took shape in my mouth.

Tennant and Marley and Smith and Chapman

lived in my body like a second bloodstream.

Dreads and guitars, hairspray and synths.

If dying was art, then dying was living.

And when the words began to form, music came with it.

Guitar lines over a phone call,

a song for the dying girl,

earphones at a HIV screening,

a CD mixtape for a dying butterfly.

Concerts and clubs full of sweaty bodies,

running ink and mascara, makeup and blood.

If death defines us; and it always has,

Do not go gently. Go fast, go hard, go loud.

And if Death defined me, He'd say

I'm one of a kind, as such, common

To speak. And laugh. And eat. And sleep. And sing. And pray. And drink. And jump. And dance. And twirl. And fall. And cry.

He'd say I sighed and never said goodbyes.

Never played outside.

Never went to the seaside.

But surely, he'd admit that I also was a fairy

whose wings spread at day and got patched at night.

Who learned to love being out of sight.

But If I defined him, I'd say

He's but another ashtray.

But if death defined all,

Would it be just a big wall

Full of people and their ways of death,

Possibly the time of their last breath

In no way should our death define us,

Even if one is colourlessness,

Only life may define someone

Even if they never hearken to commands,

Life is once,

Not eternal.

So cherish life for all you can,

For never once shall someone reclaim it again.