To You Who Loved Me, Blind and Clean

My Darling,

I kneel beside you

Your last breath no longer 

Beading sweet moisture along my fingers

As I've weaved them into yours

To watch you pass into a light you were born of

Your chest will never rise with your lungs again

And your lips are silent once and for all 

I can feel the tick of your second hand 

Slowing with each beat of your heart 

I now know for certain that you will go first

I never imagined this moment

Me waiting for the end as you sleep  

I always saw this much differently

I wanted to leave first 

So that you could be given a place to grow

Without my weight

The freedom to move on to someone more 

Honest and deserving 

Of the pedestal you keep 

In place for the one you hold 

We have made a promise 

To find one another when we leave these bodies

One I knew I'd not be 

Allowed to keep

Beyond my own existence here

You swore to me that you would 

Wait on the other side

With pink roses 

In the place where you first 

Had me as your own

My love, you are going  

I cannot let you wander in vain  

I have given you all of my white 

And my shining

All of the afterglow and sweetness

Of a loyal soul, to you that I have been

But I have only shown you what I wanted you to see

And I have lied to you day after day 

So that you believed you walked this soil 

Hand in hand with purity by your side.

Where you are meant to be now

Will not allow the wickedness of a devil  

The heart behind this mask is black to all but you  

This love alone is not enough 

To take me to where you are made to go  

I have given to you with everything 

Decent inside me  

But darling

You are the only thing 

That has kept me good

Before you

I was a scavenger

Feeding and cursed to life  

After you

I will be so again

Do not wait for me, Love 

Eternity is a fee far too great 

A price you should never pay

For what I have to offer 

Move forward from the stench of me

A beauty like yours 

Cannot be left to linger

In wait 

For such a crooked 

Smile as mine