It all began with a cry in the night, a slap on the ***, a blast of bright light. The world unfolded like a dying rose, a palette of joys, a whisper of woes. The years slipped by, they crawled so fast until you found yourself old at last. A man with a cat in a silent room, who’d laughed at death and courted doom. The piles of drugs, the nights of loss, the laughter, the money and all the dross, that led you to this lonely place, this weary body, this sagging face; the years spent longing for a rainbow sign, the nights of lovers, the nights of wine. And what can you do now it's come to this? Keep hoping for the holy kiss that might redeem your broken soul, and make you wise, and make you whole. You've left everything that you ever knew, listening for trumpets that never blew. Now life has come down to this lonely place with mirrors of memories and that sagging face, and no real hope that anything more than the life you've lived remains in store. Forget the future, it's fled at last, your days run backwards toward the past, until you let out a cry in the night and accept the dying of the light.