Notice Me

 

The doctor,

The lawyer,

The dropout,

The designer,

 

The slacker,

The stoner,

The sociologist,

The coder,

 

The major,

The gamer,

The hippie,

The homemaker,

 

The minister,

The musician,

The pilot,

The bride,

 

The friends,

The lovers,

The acquaintances

And chance encounters,

 

All the girls (and boy) 

I've kissed, 

And all the ones

I wish I had,

 

The ones I saved,

The ones who saved me,

The ones who were there

The one moment I needed you,

 

Sometimes we fought,

Sometimes we fucked,

Sometimes we didn't,

Sometimes we wanted to,

 

And even though you're gone,

No matter how distant,

No matter how silent,

No matter how unrequited,

 

No matter how wronged, 

Heartbroken, or heartbreaking,

When I think of you 

(Or you of me?),

 

And argue with your

Relentless ghosts

Each midnight mass,

And miss you,

 

I console myself

That I’m lucky you

Even noticed me

Standing here alone.

 

 

© 2026 Edward P. Morgan III

 

Freedom

 

Freedom is

Like oxygen,

Like breathing,

 

You only notice

 

Once it's gone,

Once someone

Forces it to end.

 

 

© 2026 Edward P. Morgan III

This Life

 

I've spoken truth

As well as

Spun my lies.

 

Angry or artful,

Neither leaves

A deeper impression.

 

I know how to shape

My tongue to relate

This infernal tale,

 

I just don't know 

If this life holds up

To its scrutiny.

 

 

© 2026 Edward P. Morgan III

Death Note 2

 

I never belonged

In your world,

So I seek

Another.

 

I've seen what

I needed to see,

Said what

I needed to say,

 

Except...                                     (I'm sorry)

 

It's my turn

To be selfish,

To leave without

Saying goodbye.

 

Let my fellow

Wanderers

Comfort you,

Too late.

 

 

© 2025 Edward P. Morgan III

Silence

 

Every silence

Has a quality.

 

Anxious,

Cautious,

Conspiratorial,

Contentment.

 

Ominous,

Anticipatory,

Smoldering,

Stillness.

 

If every silence

Asks a question,

Then each also

Provides an answer,

 

Casting the long

Shadow of elusive

Truth, or lies,

You must embrace.

 

 

© 2025 Edward P. Morgan III

Amber

 

A friendship frozen in memory,

Drowned by resinous trauma,

Fossilized to golden crystal,

Agelessly preserved,

A yellowed relic of the past.

 

If only I could strip away

The ossified layers,

The friend within might

Re-emerge, hale and whole,

Ready to renew our time together.

 

 

© 2025 Edward P. Morgan III

Dreaming and Dying

 

When I was young, I focused

More on my companions

Than on my calling.

 

Older now, I fixate

More on that calling

Than those companions.

 

At each point, I thought

The one more important

Than the other.

 

At each point,

I was wrong.

 

Now, my life runs backwards,

Reassembled in the wrong order

For the wrong reasons.

 

Like a mirror, once broken

The past can be rearranged

But never fully restored.

 

Deep cracks remain,

Shattering the image

Of who I thought I was,

 

Of who I thought

I would be.

 

Afraid to wake,

Afraid to sleep,

I will never rest comfortably

In that frame again.

 

 

© 2025 Edward P. Morgan III

Signs and Spirit Animals

 

I was born beneath the stars

Of Pisces. When I was young,

I swam like a fish underwater.

But before I crawled ashore,

I lost my twin in the stormy sea 

Of our mother’s womb,

Which may be why I

Can no longer drink like one.

 

My family gave us each a spirit animal,

Mostly for convenience at Christmas.

My grandmother’s was an elephant,

My mother’s a whale,

My cousin’s an owl.

If we didn’t choose,

One would be assigned.

I eventually received a wolf.

 

Years later, I was admonished

By a prospective girlfriend

To drop the lone wolf attitude.

That made me smile. Or maybe

It’s just my nature to bare my teeth.

Besides, if I had two wolves within me,

They wouldn’t fight;

They’d form a pack.

 

Earlier, my family had tried to give me a dragon,

But my dragons are fierce, not cute like theirs.

Later I returned to that mythological beast

As my screen name on a Taoist forum.

As Chinese luck would have it, the year

Of my birth is their Green Wood Dragon.

Which resonated like a personal koan:

Who would craft a dragon from green wood?

 

But were I to stain my skin with signs or spirit animals,

On one shoulder would perch a griffin rampant,

The heraldic symbol of my line and my brand,

On the other, a simple house cat

Gazing skyward in shadowed profile,

Felicia, Nyala, Smoke or Samarra,

Any of Bast’s Chosen I’ve been honored

To serve in the temple where I rent space.

 

I’ve always longed to be marked by something special,

Some tribe, some clan, some band of brotherhood.

Instead, I am destined to die alone and unadorned,

An imperfectly heard chord in this life’s ballad.

 

 

© 2025 Edward P. Morgan III

Shattered

 

Betwixt the episodes of dull exhaustion,

Between the gleaming shards of an imaginary life,

Beneath the spiderwebbed mirror of memory,

Before each dream cut like naked glass

 

Befallen from the gloaming of the underworld,

Beyond the glimmering cavern of illusion,

Bespoken by legion tongues of daemons

Belongs this poisoned curse,

 

I still believe,

In the one,

In the two,

In the ten thousand glittering things,

 

Beholden only to the frame

Of its shattered existence.

 

 

© 2024 Edward P. Morgan III

I Liked You Better

 

I liked you better

Before I knew you

Were a pedophile,

A murderer,

A rapist,

A thief.

 

Homophobic,

Antisemitic,

Sexist,

A bigot.

 

Liked is really

The wrong word.

Tolerated?

Accepted?

Admired?

Loved?

 

Or was I just

Mistaking

Attention,

Attraction,

Intrigue,

Or lust?

 

We reveal ourselves slowly,

Cautiously, seductively,

A shadow dance in seven veils,

Each slips or stripped away

 

Until all that remains is

An unrepentant scar,

Malignant as cancer,

Ugly as truth.

 

I no longer want to

Hang out with you,

Get to know you,

See you naked.

 

I just want to cover my eyes,

Hide from my misjudgment,

My shame at not seeing

Beyond your mask.

 

And yet, sometimes

I still miss the person

I thought might linger

Behind that illusion.

 

 

© 2024 Edward P. Morgan III