The chains
bound to my ankles
penetrate deeper
and
deeper
into the sunken flesh
of my once bare skin.

My pale body
radiates
against the somber shadows
of the abyss
as it plummets weightlessly into a
never
ending
darkness.

The desperation
of my quivering hands
break
the invisible threshold
that once struggled
to subdue them.

My nails
viciously
cruise down the sides of
my neck
with failed efforts to find
my voice.

Water
rapidly
pours into my lungs,
submerging
my unconnected thoughts.

I let out a muffled scream.
But no one
can hear me.

I think Death aims to surprise us
It can do so much as erase someone
With a click of a camera or
a bolt of lightning

As we drag ourselves onto grass,
still wet from rainfall last night
We tend to forget that
someone we once knew,
Beating heart and all,
Is buried beneath our very own two feet.

Death does not warn us.
All he does is ****** loved ones from between our fingertips.
No matter how hard we grasp and no matter how tight our fists are clenched,
Death will claw open our hands and force us to let go.

Take note, Death grabbed you from me.
I know Death is inevitable but he needs to understand I was not ready for tears and heartbreak.

I was not ready for the Last Good Day.
The flash of the worn out camera and the constant ringing of our dusty old phone.
There are so much things I could have said to you and your gray locks.
But alas, I did not.

Now, I stand here above your grave;
Red roses in my bare hands.
I tell you how much you mean to me and
how I will never face your smile again.
I cry out I'm sorry for not answering our dusty old phone and for not telling you how much I love you, present tense.
Kneeling on my knees, I beg you to come back so I can feel your warmth spread through my veins one last time.

My voice gets lost in the wind, I realize.
So I set down the roses we picked for you
And commend Death on how easy it was to take everything and leave me with nothing.

When we were younger
We'd sit and play for hours
With dolls and beads and flowers
With toy cars and train tracks
And at the end of the day
We'd pack them away and put them all back.
We'd go down by the river
And laugh and shiver
And joke about growing old
Little did we know
What was about to unfold

As we grew older, the fires inside of us, began to smoulder,
The shoulders we'd come to rely on
Started to decay
As we made our way, into the world
Suddenly the dolls came to life
As our dreams of becoming a husband, a wife
Started to sour.
The beads formed nooses around our necks
As we began to lose our innocence
To drugs and ***.
The flowers shrivelled up and died
As we sat and cried our own rivers to drown in.
And those pretty little halos and silver tin crows
That used to iron out our frowns
S
   l
      i
        p
           p
             e
               d,
as we d i p p e d our toes into adulthood.
The toy cars crashed,
As we smashed head on, in a collision with reality.
And there was so need to plead
For the box with our train track toys
Because the little girls and boys inside us
Had died long ago.

And besides
We drew our own tracks up and down our wrists
And straight through our hearts.
As we began to realise
We were running out of
Fresh starts and new beginnings.