I Have an Announcement: We All Get the Invitation, No RSVP Necessary.

 

Photo source ~here~

Linking with one of my favorite prompts: Shay's Word Garden Word List "Book of the Dead".

Come join us!  

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality....
~Emily Dickinson

I speak of death

 like I know it well,

 always pulling at its shirt in public,

 like it is my mother and I a timid child.

But I still hate it,

much like a sad teenager views life,

or an old man his symptoms.

It is crashing thunder

 and everything I wish I hadn’t remembered at 2 am:

unsafe ladders, a box of matches near an open flame,

 all that hurts and takes away!

Then like bells that ring of morning,

there I am trailing behind it like it is my father and I am 9 years old.

I have spent my life all too aware of its existence and how it looks to take a final breath.

Unwilling to forget, yet, in a constant state of trying!

A heart can become weary dodging every invitation and risk,

but I have also learned that staying clear of everything is in itself another form of loss.