---

The words in silence

Spew from my mouth in anguish

I am torment rendered flesh

Watching threadbare lines of triumph

Sway fragile in the winter

Upon a raised dais

Lay dead all that were dear

Their corpses knelt in place

Atrophied arms outstretched

In eternal longing to touch

The altar of this memory

A life held so fragile

Lost to eternal obscurity

Death is no end

Only this phase overt and critical

Before and after I am judged

This is truly the end of me

The ashen woods darken

As the curtain falls

In a black room

Where all are judged

Leaving behind a world

Where no mark remains

So few stay praised

So many return to nothing

Our time is compressed

The end always looming

A caress of the blade

Gleaming in scarlet

A welcoming hand offered

Ushered into the dark