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.