Geoffrey Gatza is an award-winning editor, publisher, and poet. He is the driving force behind BlazeVOX, a small press located in Buffalo, NY, and was named by the Huffington Post as one of the Top 200 Advocates for American Poetry. He is the author many books, including A Dog Lost in the Brick City of Outlawed Trees (Mute Canary, 2018), Apollo (BlazeVOX, 2014), and HouseCat Kung Fu: Strange Poems for Wild Children (Meritage, 2009). His new book of short stories The Albatross Around the Neck of Albert Ross: Strange Stories for Wild Children is out now from Lavender Ink. Geoffrey is interviewed in the Kenyon Review and Publisher’s Spotlight. He lives in Kenmore, NY with his wife and several beloved cats.

Goodnight Noises Everywhere

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When I'm obviously scrolling through my Facebook
And looking at some of the posts, all you can see is
Pictures of celebrities and my friends looking beautiful
In selfies and everything, and then there's just me,
I can't get away from any of it. My mom says it’s normal.

It is hard to cope with death, even as adults.
I just store it all inside my heart so no one sees it.
But I feel like I am going to pop and then it’ll be all
Over the Internet and then someone is going
To write some manky comment about you.
 
It’s the worst thing ever when someone you love dies
And then seeing the world happily going on with their day,
Smiling with their teeth and showing off a new shade of lip-gloss.
Your whole life has fallen apart, yet the world still turns
And other people go on being normal.

Sailor told me to see this clip on YouTube from an old movie,
Four Weddings and a Funeral. Someone reads a poem by some dead
Guy called Stop All the Clocks. And I just feel like, no, I can't do that,
I just don't want to. I want life to just go back to the way it was because
Life is now over; nothing good can come from anything anymore. Ever.

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