Two Dead Men - Poem

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A reflective poem that examines the feeling of being emotionally and spiritually dead while still alive. In “Two Dead Men,” Greg Luti portrays two men sitting in a park, each lost in their own internal sense of emptiness and disconnection from life.

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Two men sit on a park bench, neither really looking at the other.

They are speaking to each other, for no one else is there to even care.

The sky is bluer than the ocean, and it would have you comment on the lack of clouds in the sky.

The weather is just right, at a temperature where you can feel warmth and coolness at the same time.

The weatherman on TV has told people that this is the kind of day to get outside and enjoy themselves.

Smell the richness of the new seasonal flowers.

Take in the calmness of the day set forth by the weather.

Breathe in the fresh spring air as you not only take in the air, but also a newness in life.

Enjoy the day.

That is what most would do on this day.

But not these two.

Both men spoke in an honest voice, as though they accepted their cruel words before they uttered them.

They were not talking to each other as much as they were to themselves, and the other person just so happened to be there.

None of the world mattered to them, aside from the dark cloud they created over their heads.

They have both accepted a harsh truth: you can live in this life long after you die in it.

When they bury you is not the only time you may die.

“I am dead because life passed me by. Now there are kids who the world focuses on, and tries to help along with their journey.

We all act as though their mistakes are no big deal, and tell them how much life they have ahead of them.

You know I used to be one of those kids.

Now, look at me.

An old bum who complains about the world having problems,

As if I have not been living in it for the past 20 years.”

“I hear that…

I am dead too.

Would you believe that?”

“You dead?

I don’t believe it…

“Yeah, as a doornail.

Everyone used to be on me.

I was the place to go.

The cool hip thing to do.

But not anymore.

Now, what am I?

An empty abyss for the soulless who are so blind they don’t even see the emptiness they have.”

“I feel the emptiness in me.

It is somewhere in between my tears and some profound moment I have.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…

I cry about my life, and the failure I am.

What I basically messed up on.

If I think about certain things for too long.

The tears come.

Then….

It stops.

And I feel empty.

Just a hollowness in my chest, as though I am sick.

Like, I know there is nothing there.

Sometimes I think I may have accidentally dropped my soul while living.

I probably dropped it at a park or some parking lot and then never went back.”

“You at least had a soul.

What do I have?

What did I ever have?

I was created to share information, but somewhere that information got lost and perverted.

I mean literally perverted, like all sex….”

“Oh…”

“Yeah… so what happens after the emptiness sets in….

You said you then get a profound moment.

I remember those.”

“Yeah…

I cry. I doubt, and then I reason.

It’s weird.

It is like my brain gets so rewired that I then come up with an idea I never thought about.

I don’t know if I can’t be happy, or if this sadness is what inspires my thinking.”

“You go from tissues to a shotgun to a theory on life.

Damn, that’s a lot.

Most of what I deal with is bullshit.

Bullshit… that is all I have become now.”

“It’s not a shotgun. You can’t kill yourself with a shotgun.

How does that even work?”

“Fair….

Sometimes I think I was a mistake to even be made.

All anyone ever says about me are bad things I have enabled.

You hate yourself because you failed. I hate myself for who I am.

I just… I just don’t know if I am anything anymore.

I used to be myself; now it feels like I am overrun with nothingness.

And you know what hurts the most?

Those who use me don’t even know about it.

They think I am fine.

They think I am healthy.

But I am not.

I am dying, and all anyone wants to do is use me for directions or porn.”

“Don’t forget pointless posts.”

“You can kill yourself….

I can’t.

I have it so bad that people say if I get rid of myself, the world would go into a dark age.

I am not who I used to be.

I am dead, and those who use me don’t even know it.

And when I am brought up, the world defends me, not even seeing my tears.”

“You can cry?

How does that work?”

“I can’t.

But I can feel less of a realness.

What used to be full of life is a feeling of nothing now.

I share information, but now I am making information and then sharing it…

And with who?

With who?

Myself.

I have become a joke.

A punchline those guys on the roasts say.”

“Eh… I don’t watch those things.

The most joke I know about those things is when I imagined a line I would say about how no one would care if the fifteen heathens on stage all went down in a plane crash.”

“Damn, bro…

That’s dark.”

“Well yeah… I know.

I guess that is part of the joke.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I. Neither do I.”

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