Real Death

          C
Death is real
           G
Someone’s there and then they’re not
                   F
And it’s not for singing about
               G
It’s not for making into art
      F9         F
When real death enters the house
     Em
All poetry is dumb
     F9  F   G
When I  walk in
        C     G       Am
To the room where you were
     F    G
And look into
      C   C/B    F
The emptiness instead
Continues after the ad
      G
All fails
     F
My knees fail
    Am
My brain fails
        C
Words fail
G
Crusted with tears, catatonic and 
raw
   F                               
I go downstairs and outside and you
        Am
 still get mail
   C                C/B           
A week after you died a package 
         Am
with your name on it came
     G              F       
And inside was a gift for our 
                G
daughter you had ordered in secret
      C                      G 
And collapsed there on the front 
            Am   G
steps I wailed
    F                    E    
A backpack for when she goes to 
                   A5
school a couple years from now
           Bm                   C
You were thinking ahead to a future
                G                  
You must have known deep down would
     Am
 not include you
              G                    
Though you clawed at the cliff you 
       F
were sliding down
          G              C
Being swallowed into a silence
           G            Am  Am/G
That is bottomless and real
      G
It’s dumb
                      F
And I don’t want to learn anything 
from this
   Am
I love you