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                                       Am
I go downstairs and outside and you still get mail
   C                C/B                    Am
A week after you died a package with your name on it came
     G              F                       G
And inside was a gift for our daughter you had ordered in secret
      C                      G             Am   G
And collapsed there on the front steps I wailed
    F                    E                       A5
A backpack for when she goes to school a couple years from now
           Bm                   C
You were thinking ahead to a future
                G                       Am
You must have known deep down would not include you
              G                           F
Though you clawed at the cliff you 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