He looks at you the way he cannot look directly at a car
crash, slightly off to the left, half asleep
head-first into headlights, chewing on concrete
trying to decide whether long goodbyes
are worse than nothing

He looks at you as if to say we are at home in the body
but when we're alone in the lobby
it's hard to find anything to say
There's no comfort in stained glass
or pictures of organs we all have
when it's just you struggling against the hospital bed
fighting with myself not to make a memory of this moment

Nothing is worse than long goodbyes
I don't know how we watch the ones
we love die and forget to remember them alive