Get the Ending Up Front
Hadara Bar-Nadav

What a relief to be dead.
To know the end of every sentence to be dead.
To know the end of every day to be dead.
To know sentences and days are an accumulation of being dead.
Relief.

I was going nowhere all along to be dead.
Take a bite out of ardor and exhaustion to be dead.
There are people falling from the trees to be dead.
And from the windows of skyscrapers to be dead.
People with lipstick, cameras, and grenades to be dead.
We are all already dead.

Get out of bed to be dead.
Eat breakfast, piss, and check e-mail to be dead.
Light a candle and talk to dead grandmother to be dead.
Meditate to be dead.
Take medication for depression and anxiety to be dead.
Enough to kill a horse to be dead.
And wear a great dress to be dead.
A red one with white polka dots to be dead.
It’s a spectator’s sport to be dead.

Like the game of being drunk with friends and fortune cookies to be dead.
Not the one where you add in bed to the end of every fortune, but to be dead.
And why I saved fortunes in my wallet with a photo of my mother and a rubber to be dead.
The best times of your life have not yet been lived to be dead.
Trust your intuition. Your success will be great to be dead.
Or friends long absent are coming back to you to be dead.
I will be dead with them.

Like Robert who died two weeks after my wedding to be dead.
And I had all these smiling pictures of him to be dead.
Or my father struggling for balance and breath as he walked me down
the aisle to be dead.
Or my mother falling down the stairs and waiting alone for five hours to be dead.
Or having a heart attack for two and a half days before going to the hospital to be dead.
God, will this poem ever end to be dead?

I thought it was going to be funny to be dead.
About cookies to be dead.
I’m apparently not Zen enough to be dead.
Raised Jewish and afraid to be dead.
The Holocaust to be dead.
All things come to an end to be dead.

© Hadara Bar-Nadav