Heart skips
like a warped record,
trembles over scarred vinyl
until "I love you"
tastes incomplete:

(I)                love                 you

I                  (love)               you

I                   love                (you).

My Swan Song mewls off key,
cascades across the
marred terrain of my soul
in a thick lacquer of tears.
Notes flatline
in unison with my
waning pulse
(waning, like the face
of the moon on the night
of my eighteenth birthday).

My breath
resigns to static,
dances in slow decrescendos--
sputters its way
towards nothingness,
slipping rapidly from
my consciousness until
I no longer hold
any recollection of the music
(or the poetry).