If you don't believe in the afterlife, how can you reconcile decay and eternal love? |
I'd rather hold onto your body cold and slain by frost than let go and move on letting you live in memory because memories are fragile things so very fragile and I do not trust myself with keeping you eternally alive what if, in the blink of a battered eye, some sixty years down the road senility lets your memory trickle from my ears, leaving me quietly burdened with the sense that something had been lost? no, I do not trust myself this way is better to have your viscous skin coat my hands and stiff knotted knuckles burning an unwanted image into that sterile, rosy glow called afterlife I would rather cling to what you are (rather than what you were) until this is the only truth (the only solace of the atheist) and I will hold you until any previous recognition is overwhelmed one day, I will never know how I tasted your lips, plump, and shining without crease or that in midsummer your laughter rose like smoke in twilight, and your gray eyes welled with joy as you told me how you loved the gloaming! Bygone days, bygone days, alas! I crane your unyielding neck towards my breast and graze brittle lips that taste of salt and earth and things foul beyond depiction I will stay until sickened by the death-scent that has replaced lilacs and nectarines on the palate of your skin I will stay until even your laughter has become the haunting sound of leaves breaking underfoot because it is winter now and summer is, at best, a memory as these hollow, weathered bones are now just a storehouse for such fragile things |