Poetry

Kevin Ridgeway

FRIEND REQUEST FROM THE DEAD

I have yet to respond to the friend request
I received yesterday from an old school pal
we lost far too soon. I am thinking about it
and have decided to honor my friend’s request
to see if it is really them, back from the dead
and taking selfies with their smiling head
photoshopped onto other peoples’
live bodies in a crude manner.
But I still lie to myself, blind and
dangerous in my unprocessed grief
as unknown feelings eat me alive.
People will get tons of friend requests
from me in an effort to comfort people
with the lies we tell when eternity knocks
on the door with a digital immortality
that many people say is to die for.

Kevin Ridgeway is the author of Too Young to Know (Stubborn Mule Press) and nine
chapbooks of poetry including Grandma Goes to Rehab (Analog Submission Press,
UK). His work can recently be found in Slipstream, Chiron Review, Nerve Cowboy,
Plainsongs, San Pedro River Review, The Cape Rock, Trailer Park Quarterly, Main
Street Rag, Cultural Weekly and The American Journal of Poetry, among others. He
lives and writes in Long Beach, CA.