JOY EXTINGUISHED: eulogy for Gus

Your voice prophetic

Your spirit magnetic

Goth boy fire

Your energy electric

I look you in your eyes

Like I know your pain

Toxins flood your veins

Songs of guilt and shame

Trying not to cry too loud

Weeping in silence

Searing pain in your gut

Words to speak like violence

Cocaine lined up

Hiding deadly secrets

Longing to be heard

Yearning to reveal this

You know it’s fucked

When pain feels like pleasure

Your joy strangled

Your spirit untethered

You let us feel your pain

Because we got you high

This web unraveled

This maze in your mind

You were more than addiction

You were more than pain

Your radical vision

Of a world unchained

In pulsating rhythm

You sang a symphony

Drug fueled epiphanies

Etched in our memory

We still feel your joy

Flames still burn our eyes

Your tragic legend lives

Your fierce goth boy fire

Pulsating with rebellion

Your disease a curse

You were anarchy’s prince

Love now, cry later, it hurts

–BYPO PHOENIX & GOTHIC ANGEL c)2024