Before death lures you home
Look back at what the wind was trying to tell you
Long before the clock on the wall
Birthed the voice that lied
Time held you back even as it pushed you forward
The idea of a free soul caged by their skin
Sounds like a story from the old books
But it is how many of you live.
From the times of the bloody crusades
When your descendants discovered religion
Then let politicians
Tamper with the scriptures
Death still took what was there and more
Greed drives people to a battleground
Where they drop enough warriors
For future thrones in a world
They never live to see.
For a mortal knows not the hour
And the gods that have roamed
Every corner of the universe
That holds your life
Remain the keepers of the truth
About the minute it begins
To where its light dims
Yet you have been worried about a past
That is out of reach
And a future that you were never promised
Because you forgot to live.
Now the walls of your grave await
Your reluctant passage
While you etch another bloodless pledge
Of an enviable life if your bones reincarnate
As what holds you back
Fades in the realisation of you only live once
And you lost your chance
To the fear of being judged
Or the agonising need to prove
You can fit into the mundane acceptance
Of a simple existence.
I think about death sometimes and I am trying to make peace with my bitterness towards it as I never dared to deal with a few departures. Hopefully, it finds you trying to live if not fully embracing the rarity of you still being alive even as you remain prone to death.
...the digital art is mine.
wambuku w.
Death doesn't bother me as much as the thought that every second is just one second closer to it. I worry I waste most of those seconds and will never get them back. I don't have bitterness towards death, more towards the wasted life.
Very inspiring read! I also appreciated greatly your thoughts in italics at the end. Thank you for posting this deep reflective piece!
It's a balancing act isn't it, living whilst knowing death is inevitable. How much of life to waste, and is just living really a waste anyway? To whose standards?
Just breathing and being kind and celebrating the wonder of the world is enough for me, or at least should be, if I didn't get these niggling doubts...
It really seems like an old story, but it happens.