For Your Comfort

A poem by Jess Semaan

Bury me for your comfort, but don’t spoil your delicate hands. Leave me to rot on the side of a highway.

I will die and say I am alive; I will testify suicide for your comfort.

Erase the lines of my forehead. I will tear down ancestry lines for your comfort. I the pencil and you the bulldozer. We the books you the fire.

For your comfort, change my name to relax your tongue. Turn me into a smiling Christmas Holiday card. Wish me Happy Holidays.

For your comfort, drown me in your tears. And when they dry, soak the tears from my eyes and leave me thirsty, hungry begging at your door.

For your comfort, I will sit and listen to you until you dispose of me, I will say it wasn’t you who disposed of me. I was a threat and you were an angel.

For your comfort, somewhere someone will finish me.