Author: Mel A. Riverwood
Some people never hear the silence talk.
But to me, it screams, with every tick of the clock,
It says I will die, though I already know,
And tells me someday I won’t feel anymore;
What could that feel like, to not feel?
Do the dead still live?
I know I am young, I should not have such thoughts,
‘Forget, forget,’ they say, ‘forget time and laugh!’
But I feel death, and her hands are so cold;
They freeze all my dreams and everything I long for
And hold in their palms all the fear that I hold.
I wish to see spring and hear birdsong forevermore;
But the taste of the end is ever so near,
So I beg of you, blue and green mother, don’t let me disappear.
How I wish the whole world sang my humble refrain;
I knew not that hope came with such shattering pain.
I would give it all, but my words, just for a little more
Time and to live and live and live and live,
And encore;
Forevermore.
I am selfish and lonely, I am childish and afraid;
I would watch the world fade if it meant that I stayed.
Please, someone tell me, just tell me, where do we go?
Where do we go?
Where do we go?
WHERE DO WE GO?
Where do we go once we feel no more?
What are we then? How do we exist?
Please, someone tell me we have much more than this.
I will always know this fear that steals my thin breath,
But begging time for mercy will not work on death.
So please, remember me, for as long as you can,
But if the world is to forget, then let me fade as I am:
When my ink-stained fingers will be writing no more,
Bury me in a forest and bury me on the shore;
For I cannot die where I cannot hear the sea,
And I cannot live where the blackbirds don’t sing.
But when you inearth me, please keep my hair
And burn it, then scatter it in the air.
So with my body to soil and water, and my locks through fire to wind,
I may finally be everything.
‘What of thy mind?’ you may ask;
‘For her,’ say I, ‘you have no task.
Wake up with the sun and listen to the birds,
Sing with the rivers and read all my words.
Then you will know her, remember her,
And that is all that I long for.’
I still wish I could stay just a little bit longer.
But I feel that my death has started to saunter;
She will take her time, as I will take mine,
As two sides of a coin that will be paid to time.
And when we will meet, I know my fear won’t have faded,
But I’ll kiss my death with all the love I’ll have created.
This is my wish. Farewell, my friend;
I may be years in advance, or this may be the end.
And when you, too, will be stepping in the darkest light,
Come find me “where the dreamers dream and the others go to die.” 1
1 from the song Bye Bye by Low Roar, which has helped a lot in the writing of this poem.