At last we may rest
Beneath a blood red sun
The battle over
The day thus done
I pray it sets soon
Never to rise
And never remembered
Save in the eyes
Of the dead that lay here
In heaps and scores
Let us forever forget
Our ways of war

Death lives within these walls.
It seeped up through the attic rafters,
Settled down in the furthest recesses,
And it waited for me.

I know you, Death.
We become more familiar with each passing day.
You are the movement in my peripheral in an empty room;
The whisper in my ear originating from nowhere;
The hair on my arms and neck standing, unprovoked;
The unease slowly building within me.

The cat knows you, too.
I see her watching you as you move throughout the house,
Never turning her back to you.
She is protecting me.
Even when you call her name, she will not leave my side.
She arches her back in warning when you get too close -
Is she warning you to stay away?
Or warning me that you are approaching?

I sense you are getting stronger, Death.
I feel you when you slink up beside me and linger there -
But yesterday you touched me.
It froze me to my soul, and to the spot where I was standing.
Unable to move.
Unable to breathe.
Gripped by a terror I've never known before,
But understand I will know again.

My light is slowly fading into your darkness
And I feel helpless to stop it.
What do you want from me, Death?
And how far will you go to get it?

never date a poet because they’ll
expose your lies with the stroke
of a pen and leave you to bleed out
your sorrows.

If in your dreams
I may intrude
To sit and watch
To think and brood

Pondering the pieces
I place together
Of your idle wonder
In coming weather

Your forlorn wishes
Your paths not tread
The love and wisdom
In your heart and head

And if I may
Indeed I might
I'll sail those seas
And from them take flight

To stand with you
Before that storm
The one I left
The heavens for