Rest

She rose from her body

elevated, at last,

and I waited calmly

for the freedom of sunrise.

-

It came and went, but my breath remained elsewhere.

-

The cold was bitter, and emphasised my pains

the long journey home, marked by what was missing,

the height of the mountains dizzying, the water hungry and waiting.

-

The machines whirred and clanked

the cars passed by in their

anticipatory silence

and my body never felt quite so small

while carrying you to a place of rest.

-

The wires followed in ways that only the moon could,

and I remembered everything

for one last time.

-

After that, memory would be optional — I’d swallow what remained:

the bitterest pill absorbed

my mind, for now, absolved.

-

The skeleton went to the land

the spirit elsewhere, roaming,

my despair as present as ever

intensifying,

laying its roots deeper than ever before.

-

Life on Earth is just a death sentence

and never before has

the noose loomed so close.