I Could Not Stop (Even With Love)

I could not stop for death* even after, my daddy died from pneumonia when I was like 4 or 5 years old vague memories deprive him of a real definitive place - so I no longer search for him nor the withering parts of Momma that have scattered leisurely into a hell she made a life & maybe it was set up that way maybe all she wanted to do was cry - & maybe those were her tears that dripped so consistently from those diabetic syringes filled with poisonous self-inflicted pain swelling arms oozing pus & maybe she really believes the hype that her business wasn't our business- even after the devil's audit results & see... i don't need a cripple's crutch but what does she really think as she watches her daughter dying a carbon copy black suicide ? & says "boy i did my best" & is she talking to me I wonder or is she talking to death... still - i could not stop. - Ray x. Johnson 1999 *line inspired by Emily Dickinson poem "because I could not stop for death"