The Chronicle

I must confess
I went back
into that same room,
the one that chronicled
a death too soon.

The room was full
of people,
and the people
were full of darkness.

The lights
supposed to beckon
us home
seemed so far above
that they only
seemed to twinkle
as dying stars do.

They barely made
a spot of torn light
between the curtains
now drawn.

Flowers of every scented color
twirled out from either side,
twirled around the dashing lights
and their shapes changed
with every note
played
by those faint lights.

The silence they created
could walk
right through a storm,
and the storm
would come undone.

Now
even though
the darkness remained,
everyone was gone.

Only I
sat in the crowd
while the room
roared
a distressed cry.

The flowers
they fled;
they were all gone
but one.
And she didn’t stop.
Not once.

Damaged and weathered
she smiled, laughed and cried.
Unstoppable.
Unwavering.

She bled out
every vessel
until I realized
the roots were feet,
the leaves were hands.

And she fell
as a flower
dropped
by a careless child.

I rose towards her
seeing how our bruises
mirrored the stories in the sky
I carried her off
right before we shut the lights.