Wake me. Shake me. Just embrace me. Let it all unfold.

Tame the pain that boils insane and stand for me to hold.

Rise and run the race you won for I still can't believe

A world exists where you are missed in just the way we grieve.



Shell-shocked. Broken. Clutching tokens proving you were here.

Stretching skin that's wearing thin on hands that pull you near.

Unfair: a word that's too absurd to symbolize the hour.

The moment when your soul escaped and hope lost all its power.



Return. Confirm that love holds firm in proving it can't lose.

I won't submit. I can't acquit the demon of his ruse.

How dare he take it all from me and leave this life asunder?

Ripped apart by apathy of others, I sink under.



No one knew us. No one saw the bond that rubbed the moonlight raw.

The love we held, its flame too bright. The light that left the day in awe.

Hurtful, too were all the truths that you shared just with me.

In doing so, you hid such depth that no two eyes could see.



Memories of all the times your lips formed words that shone

Echo evermore within. Reverberations hone.

They whittle bit by aching bit into the home you dug.

The roots you planted in my heart consume me like a drug.



Ironic, maybe that the reckless torture I should mention

Was one more creature that you conquered, breaking all convention.

Pride is such an empty word compared to what I felt

When you became a woman who could stand where she had knelt.



So this I have: A picture of your ever-gorgeous face.

Lividity I hold cries, "Save the angel he disgraced."

I've nothing else but vestiges of all that we once built.

A laugh. A tear. A broken fear whose sword pierced to the hilt.



Destroying misconceptions that once drove you to protection

We found love among the ashes of rejection.

Thus grasping toward affection, we got lost in misdirection.

Vonda, truly, our bond matches your complexion.



Beauty lies where dreams won't die, and this we'll always cling to.

Sharing minds that defy time and complicate what they knew.

Standing, fighting, life-delighting, wonderful; you opened

Eyes unto a world that showed you you were not quite broken.



Some part of me wished wistfully that I might 'ere have listed

Lines that drew a complicated swath 'round what we'd twisted.

Fingers that beat perfectly in time with songs of meaning.

Singing long into the nights that screamed of fates convening.



No, I think I'll keep the truth that only you and I can know.

The tears I've spilled don't need to find a place for life to grow.

I'm terrified that I can't hold you, see you, catch a glance.

But I love you too much for death to ever have a chance.