It Will Be Slow

and you can’t do much about it.

Staring at a blank page

waiting for death to appear

is a thankless task,

because it won’t come all at once

like when a soldier gets his internals

ruptured with metal.

Instead,

It will come slowly,

like the clotting of blood.

You wish it were fast,

that it came like a

trailblazing bullet,

snap,

and gone,

but it won’t come so easy.

Instead,

It will drip

listlessly

fading reminiscences

of faces

you once knew

will become

unrecognizable.

You’ll scamper around

waiting to greet the Face,

but it will evade you

leaving its elusive smell

for you

to continue scuttling

in the dark.

It will not

come like a falcon

diving down

on its prey

but slither painfully

like an injured snake

lost in the woods.

Don’t wait for death’s eternal

Kingdom

in the blankness

of a page —

no, love won’t hide there anymore —

but expect it to kill you everyday

till you are swollen up with death blisters —

red and full of dull liquid —

biding its time to give you

a dim, unending end.