Requiem

I can see you…..

You are like a ghost in front of me

And I want to reach out but I’m afraid

That I won’t feel you…..

That all there is is cold and forbidding air.

Have you always been like this?

Just a haunting after image?

Just the last few seconds of dying breaths

Of some angel that is about to ascend?

And yet you never speak….

Or at least I never hear your voice…..

Do I cry?

Do I pray for your soul or mine?

Which of us has died and gone from the world?

I’m not sure it’s you anymore…..

I think it’s me….I think it’s always been me….

You were my end……I know that now,

I felt it all along and that’s why

I never spoke…and you never heard….

Until now….

Now I fade……

This isn’t a song,

Not the way all my others have….

Ballads, tributes, love songs slow and fast,

All of them are gone, none of them will last….

Just my requiem….

My ten verse epitaph

That one or two will read and none shall remember….

That will echo in my mind forever…..

As it passed on the wind,

Like my ashes and my skin….

You were everything to me…..

My true ascent and now my fall….

And I have begun to fade already….

Shadow cloaks and wisps of blackened smoke

Begin to wrap my very eyes….

And all the things I want to say and speak,

All the forgiveness that I want to beg for

On my knees passes from my mind

And all I do is fight to see you……

One last time as I pass…..

My body remains.

Blood still burns through my veins,

I still dream and breathe and think,

But I do not feel….

I no longer am seen by God,

Nor does the devil haunt my steps,

My soul has been judged and passed,

What’s left is just me waiting,

For the day I join it in its fate.

Do not cry, it is too late.

And if this be the last I ever write,

I doubt it will, though this night

Shall be the last I ever hold

So close the feelings in my words,

The passion that drives me fingers

‘Cross the pages the way they do,

And many will fear that what I say is true,

And will know not whether to fear

The fall of me or what made me fall….

For neither comforts anyone at all….

And so I sing….

Shadowed orchids, favored flower,

Roses too long I trusted to supplant

The passion in my heart into another,

To have one that would every hour

Stand by my side and listen to me rant

And call me nothing but their lover….

All gone are these hopes,

Shattered are these dreams,

Fate does not lend me favor yet I shall fight

So do not fear to lend me rope,

For while this is my end it seems,

The pain that burns me on this night

Will not force me to take my breath,

Though it’s true I have nothing left,

There are no thoughts in me of death,

I am already dead.

No light is in my eyes.

Look close, too close and you shall see,

The fire’s gone in all of me…..

And every word I say, all of them,

Echoes with this, my fallen requiem.