Eternal

“Is that you?” Sue whispered into the night,
as a pebble pecked her bedroom windowpane.
She spied Tim hovering near a streetlight.
Her heart leapt as she saw her beloved once again.

She climbed through the window and down the tree,
the bark scratching the balls of her bare feet.
Seeming to float, she breathed, “You came for me,”
and held out her arms as she ran up the street.

But when Tim stepped from the shadows, Sue froze.
Her love stood speechless, as a shell of himself,
his skin beginning to gray, to decompose.
Sue knew, then, she would have to decide for herself.

She pondered the choices she needed to make--
Should she flee or should she stay?
Did she possess the courage it would take
to release her beloved and walk away?

True, their love was young, fragile, and new.
But they loved intensely with their every breath.
No dimensional veil could render them through.
Their passion burned with sincerity, with depth.

Tim had lived as straight as an arrow's flight path,
but Sue knew of the bruises he'd hidden so well.
She knew Tim bore the scars of his father's wrath,
and had her own tales of secret pain to tell.

Drawn to each other through the bond they shared,
he became her jock hero, and she, his goth princess.
Only the two of them, for each other, ever cared.
Without Tim, Sue saw her life as meaningless.

She kissed the chilled flesh of Timothy's cheek.
With no regrets, Sue was willing and ready.
On the foot bridge that ran above the creek,
Tim helped her climb up and held her steady.

The chapel's bell echoed through the quaint town,
their chimes ushering in the midnight hour,
as Death prepared to swipe His scythe down,
eager to possess a new wilted flower.

Sue stepped to the edge, then fell forward.
Upon jagged rocks, she exhaled her last breath.
Then, suddenly, she hovered in the graveyard,
where she and her love reunited in death.

Now, the foot bridge is rumored to be haunted
by Sue and Tim's ghosts and all those who leap,
their souls joining others unloved and unwanted.
On the autumn wind, hear them joyously weep.