The day I met Death
He was nothing at all like his dark depictions
With compassionate eyes of purple and blue
A look that promised to removed all my afflictions
He took my hand into his and my calmness grew
I should have felt scared as we entered this place
With its dazzling skies on twisted lightning seas
But I felt a stillness, as I looked upon his immortal face
Such human features, but an inhuman ability to create ease
And just as gently and as swiftly as he did appear
He left, but not before whispering one last thing
We were destined to meet and now I leave you here
To live your life in the death that I did bring
Nothing is certain, but we all shall one day meet our death
And then he was gone, I was gone and so was my last breath
we started talking again today.
some part of my heart lived in winter
and my blood, used to the cold,
had not noticed
and you are like the first bloom of spring
the flowers in my heart and in my skin
open to the sun of your smile
something inside of me, fragile and trembling,
calms. steadies. rests.
(I love you I love you I love you I love you)
In the quiet
According to my high school physics textbook,
Sound will not travel without something to travel through.
The atmosphere, the ocean, even a wall will do.
(Such is why space is always so quiet.)
According to my high school experience,
Misery will not arrive without silence to travel through.
The evening, the morning, even the afternoon will do.
(Such is why nighttime is always so grim.)
There is something about the moment
The entire world turns in for the night
That seems to turn something on inside me.
This is when the whispers start.
Good-for-nothing, they call.
Screw-up. Lazy. Idiot.
They build in my chest and scream silently,
Buzzing like a swarm of wasps under my skin.
They dig my nails into my palms
Grind my teeth like millstones
Make me consider quieting the cacophony
By removing the life they need to travel through.
I never did, though.
Instead, I followed the world's advice
And turned in for the night-
Turned into a thoughtless body
Wrapped in sheets and blankets and dreams.
I turned up the volume on life,
In friends' chatter and teachers' droning,
Trucks on the pavement and birds in the trees:
The surround-sound of the universe.
Until, of course,
The next night.
(According to my high school English textbook,
Edgar Allen Poe found the beauty in pain
And the art in the melancholic.
He lived to forty and died in the night.)
