Matthew Buckley Smith

To Marilyn Manson

    You might be why

I didn’t kill myself

    some night in ’98 or ’99.

A Southern Catholic atheist

    yourself, you had a voice

I took back then for mine.

    You soured, and I survived,

for good or ill, depending

    on the day, I can’t decide.

I’m over both your music

    and the hill, and out

of arguments for suicide.

    Meanwhile, I’ve learned

the vicious metaphor

    I took you for was

no figure of speech.

    Nor, it seems, are you

Southern, Catholic, or

    anyone with anything

to teach. And yet, for me,

    those early records stand

apart. Somehow I thought

    you’d understand.

Matthew Buckley Smith is the author of the poetry collections Midlife (Measure, 2024) and Dirge for an Imaginary World (Able Muse, 2012). He hosts the poetry podcast SLEERICKETS.