AFFIRMATION

The boy showed promise.
From a very early age
He was useful to those that didn’t care about him.
He only asked the questions
That came of the pre-approved list he had never seen,
And he didn’t wait for the answers.
He always asked permission
And apologized for not having it.
He answered promptly and in a way that made no sense,
According to the scriptures.
He made sure to be as little as possible,
To be the smallest of specks,
The most nothing there could ever be.
In short, he made something of himself,
And that something,
Was nothing.
He was less than anybody else.
He did precisely what he was told
And had plenty of nothing to show for it.
Yes, he showed promise,
And he fulfilled it.
He fulfilled it the only way he knew how
He purchased a fifth of commercial-grade whiskey
And he tried to kill his nothing.
He did it right but it didn’t work.
After, all, how can nothing die?
It made him a surly, desperate nothing,
A nothing that would do anything to exist.
It had been made clear to him early on
That he would not know happiness.
So he thought he’d go out looking for pain.
He slit his wrists and watched his blood,
His red, hot blood,
The only real thing in him,
Leave his body, trickling down his arm and over his hands.
He did it wrong, because it was the right way.
He wouldn’t die.
He couldn’t die.
He was never alive.
Nothing doesn’t live,
It only shows promise,
The promise of becoming less.