Euphemisms

He’s gone and he’s not coming back.

I often wondered why we soften our speech,

why our words deceive with thoughts they lack.

I think that our human lips are too frail,

Our voices too weak to hold

the brutal truth of death,

of heartbeats stilled and skin grown cold.

Our throats will crack the words in two

(He’s de

ad).

Our eyes will

fill

and our breathing

hitch

and all at once, the spines we have

s

t

r

a

i

g

h

t

e

n

e

d

will remember the weight of our hearts and

c

  r

     u

     m

   p

  l

e.

And so we lie.

Because ‘he’s gone’ reminds us of business trips

and school days.

Temporary states in which

he is still living.

Not the reduction of corpses to ashes,

the irrevocable loss of spirit.

Not death.