Hideously Beautiful

This particular book of poetry ended up revolving around my never ending obsession with death.

Throughout my years I have walked along the darker side of the road. In both my personal and professional life.

From suicide to cancer, death comes in may forms, visits every life in this seemingly uncaring world.

On a professional level I have had to deal with Identifying two of my residents that had passed. The first being so far gone my ability to ID her was a fruitless effort, she stared silent and unblinking from her eyeless sockets as she lay motionless on her bed. She was beyond unrecognizable, aside from her hair that had been done not a month before, so I was able to confirm to the police that it probably was her.

The smell of her rotting form never did leave me. Now and then when lighting up a smoke inhaling deeply, that smell, that taste, that only someone who has been in the same room with a rotting corpse can understand, fills my senses. Fills my mouth as her decaying fingers drag themselves down my throat in an effort to ensure I will never forget her.

Those moments, that loss of life, that sad way to die alone, old, and forgotten by all, seems so Hideous to me. Yet from her own words about the life she once lived with her long since departed husband in Hollywood, California made it all so Beautiful in stark contrast.

Life keeps going ignorant and uncaring of the loss.

This life we carve out for ourselves only to have it all fall apart at our deaths. Fall apart or be sold off to the first willing buyer of our life’s collections, makes it seem so fruitless an endeavor.

Our blood, sweat, and tears.

Our love, loss, and satisfactions.

Gone in a moment, even though it took us a lifetime to build.

Selfish families fighting over our things solely for money, an easy buck unearned.

How all so utterly Hideously Beautiful…