If it were my last

I tug the coarse rope through my hands, testing it. I hold it close and wonder idly how it'll feel around my neck, wonder if it'll burn. My throat swallows my heart and an uneven rhythm echoes through the space in my ribcage where it should rest. I am empty.

"Are you done yet?" The guard's voice comes out twisted, as if the very sight of me coats his throat in poison to burn as it drips from his uneven lips, pulled tight in a sneer.

"Yeah." My voice is hoarse and ragged sounding, the realization that I haven't spoken in days, weeks maybe, settles uncomfortably in my hollow chest. It weighs on my ribs like roots weaving between the frail bones, crawling up my airways and flourishing where my lungs used to breathe. 

I had always thought last wishes were a mercy, a final blessing before they hauled wrong-doers off for their atrocities. 

I was wrong. 

Every wish granted is a curse, trembling hands under the flickering light of a cell that's never warm enough as you clutch tightly to what will be your death, because you asked to. And as I hold the noose in my hands, feel it lay between my palms, I am hollow.

Who am I to ask to be spared for what was not my doing? Who would I have to be to hold that right?