When my hand waves its final goodbye
to the last of my living words,
and my body is lowered into the silence,
to be claimed by doubt, by hate, by love,
or by some nameless shadow,
I know I will not find peace
unless your thoughts are still with me.
Among the dark-suited figures
gathered around my tombstone,
I long for the flowery scent of your dress,
just once more,
to bless the air I can no longer breathe.
If you came in doubt, be reassured,
the beginning and the end were nothing but covers.
The middle pages every torn,
ink-stained line of them,
belonged only to you.
If you stand near hate, know that I did too.
I met that companion in the long nights
when solitude pressed against my mind
and painted every corner black.
If there is any love left,
you are too late.
Let one drop fall into my tomb,
and another to the crow
perched atop my pile of dirt.
If you are here for a final goodbye,
remember this, goodbye lies.
I died a thousand quiet deaths while alive,
each one beginning the night
I first dreamed of you.
So tell me, do you think another death
could silence the soul of my thoughts,
or erase the way I still ache for you?
If not for the living anymore,
then I will write of you for the dead.
For when they have nothing left
but the unloving, icy mist
that forgets, that forbids,
I will keep remembering you.
Because I still pulse with a warmth
that grows in solitude.
Because my life was a fictional memoir,
and the only truth it ever held, was you.
I already know what it means to be dead.
I carried that knowledge long before the grave.
And so, from these shadowed remnants,
I bid you a farewell that is not final.
As before,
I remain, hopelessly lost,
and endlessly in love.
Love is not bound by time, nor silenced by death. When the body rests, the heart still remembers. This is not the end, only another way of saying, I loved, I love, I always will.
