No Life after Life

Imagine if there were no life after life.
No heaven. no hell. no afterlife.
Your life just shut down like your computer.
All the near death experiences,
all the visions and dreams,
suggesting live continues
into the afterlife
were all illusionary.
And all that was you
erased forever.
I believe in what the NDEs tell us –
life goes on forever,
but if we all die into nothingness
I’ve reached a point in old age
where I’d be okay with that.
I no longer fear obliteration.
I can now accept it easily.
I used to worry about it in my youth
until I realized there’d be no me
to worry about if I died,
and the I that is me
died forever.
Now that I’m older
and my dying day is closer
I can accept the possibility
of dying into nothingness
even easier, and I’m okay with it.

Bob Boyd

her gray matter

for the first time since
he fell in love with her
he realized she was just what
was contained inside her gray matter
her face, her arms, her legs
and everything else
were not the real her

she was just that brain organ
lodged inside her beautiful head
the rest of her were only accessories
that her brain moved and directed
like an ingenious puppet master

and her personality,
thoughts, feelings
moods and quirks
were powered by it

and the day came when
although he loved her beautiful face
and her curvaceous body
he knew he could never
get along
with her gray matter

bob boyd

wooden dolls

he was harmless but eccentric.
50 years old and lonely,
he’d never been with a woman.

he had a little girl’s dollhouse
he’d kept since childhood
when his sister abandoned it.

he dreamed of being
with pretty women
that he saw daily
on the city streets.

since all of them
ignored him
and he knew
none would ever
be with him,
he carved
little wooden dolls
that looked like them.

he kept the wooden dolls
in his little girl’s dollhouse
and dreamed that they
were real and loved him.

he talked to them
as if they were alive
gave them names
and put little doll
dresses on them.

he made up birthdays
for each doll
and bought tiny
christmas presents
for them all.

he talked sweetly
to the wooden dolls
and kissed each one
good night every night.

at age 55 he died
with 100 wooden dolls
in his dollhouse
and never knew
the love of
a real woman.

bob boyd