ME & DEATH
Death watched me finish my story,
his eyes dimming like lamps starved of oil.
For a moment he said nothing-
just stared at the wreckage inside me
as if reading a book he was afraid to touch.
Then he rose, slowly, almost apologetically,
and extended his thin, trembling hand.
“Come,” he whispered,
“there are places darker than hell…
and yet they hurt far less than what you’ve endured.”
I hesitated, out of habit,
out of the strange loyalty I still carried
toward the world that ruined me.
But Death only looked at me with quiet grief,
the grief of someone who knows
I have suffered more than most corpses he has collected.
“Walk with me,” he said,
“not to punish you,
but to lead you somewhere
where the monsters are at least honest.”
And for the first time,
the real world felt more terrifying
than the hell he gently offered.
