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 Poet 11586

Dear me

By aldo kraas, www.PoetryPoem.com/poet11586    Unlock all Features - Upgrade to Poetry Prime

Dear me,
Are you afraid of death?
The way it looms in the corner of our vision,
Constantly consuming every thought,
every breath,
every glance at the trees in the fall
whose leaves, golden and orange and crimson,
get caught like fear in a handful of dust,
lifted up by gusts of wind.
Dear me,
Do you ever look in the mirror and count the scars,
and marks and rings under your eyes
that weren't there the day before?
One, two, three.
Like the beating of our heart,
tha-thump, tha-thump...
Dear me,
Has it always been a dream to you, too?
The strangling uncertainty that when you go to sleep at night,
when you close your eyes and shut yourself from the endless chatter of this day, this Earth, this dimension,
and your brain releases all those fancy chemicals that
slow your breathing,
paralyze your limbs,
and soothe your softly sighing mind until it all
fades to nothing...
And up you rocket out of your tangled sheets,
sweat clinging to your shirt and matted hair,
the nightmare clawing at your brain, burrowing
inside the darkest crevices of your mind
like ten thousand icepicks being pounded into the interior of your skull,
and you're drowning and gasping and crying, "Let me out, let me out, LET ME OUT!"
but the nightmare still lingers, constricting your throat
and nothing comes out but dry, wittled croaks
and you remember, oh, you remember
the cracked, peeling walls of the parlor,
full of frail husks in ill-fitted suits,
as pale as the withered corpse lying in the coffin in front of them,
and your sister links your arm in hers and says--
you can barely hear her with the blood rushing to your ears--
"Ready?"
and you say the worst lie you've ever said in your life,
"Yeah. I'm ready."
and she gestures to the casket at the front of the room that
may as well be ten thousand lightyears away on some distant inhospitable planet
whose atmosphere would immediately obstruct the lungs of a person breathing its air
as their blood vessels rupture and organs implode,
and you're snatched back to reality as you realize
that your feet are dragging you towards the coffin,
(That isn't her.)
 clacking on the cool wooden floor,
(That can't be her.)
and then you see it.
A mortician's masterpiece,
with makeup so flawless it reminds you of a porcelain doll,
so peaceful and tranquil as if merely sleeping,
and all you could notice
was the most beautiful and elaborate gown you've ever seen,
A vivid and luscious pure emerald green,
and suddenly you're on your knees and wailing like a little girl
who's found a dying baby bird whose mother left the nest one day and
never returned
and discovers for the first time that
everything is not right in the world.
Because all you can see is the dress and all you can think
is the thought that forces its filthy tendrils down your throat as you bawl
and pushes further and further until it gouges your heart,
squeezing and tearing and bleeding and dying,
because all you can think, all you can hear is the thought,
"She hated the color green."
Dear me,
Do you ever wonder how it would feel to let go of the branch?
To finally stop resisting the lulling whispers
that lurk in every shadow you cross,
leeching onto you like fifty-five ton parasites
dragging down your aching limbs with every step you take?
Dear me,
Some people say that you do not die with your last breath,
that you will continue to exist as long as others remember you.
They say your final death happens when
your name is spoken for the last time.
I'm not sure if I believe that or not.
Do you?









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