Seized – a poem

I 

When the clock strikes twelve the second time of the day, 

I shall, with my love and hatred and regret,  

fade. My memories will gyre high in the night sky

Like specks of dust, 

Sailing amongst the stars, 

glittering under the moonlight. 

I hope my last Eighty-Six-Thousand-Four-Hundred-Seconds may be well spent. 

But for all I will, I cannot cease the paralyzing horror. 

A monster rises in my mind’s void, larger and larger. 

No, I cannot leave in fear – no. No! 

Death is at his most merciless, 

When he warns one of his visit. 

It is better to die suddenly, tragically –

To be plunged into the reaper’s embrace –

Than to wait for his fateful coming. 

No life can be lived so long as the faint phantom of the scythe 

Kinks in the mind. 

Lady Melancholy, too, pays her respect, 

Into a vortex, I plunge. 

She engulfs me. I cannot breathe. 

Is it always this cold? Tell me, tell me. 

I don’t want to live forever

Not anymore. 

Life is ceasing before me.

The stars in the heavens – 

is this how you feel before the last vestige of heat escapes you? 

Is it pitiful to reach the end of this marathon, 

Only to realize that there’s no road beyond?

There is delight in suffering when suffering sets to cease. 

On my black piano a black owl sits. 

A tree falls before me. 

It’s expelled of leaves, 

Its complexion dim, 

Its emaciated hands reaching out, 

reaching out towards me.  

II

Oh Lord God Almighty, 

How much do I wish to believe!

Your dim light at the end of the cave,  

Illuminates how many! 

I’m scared. I’m scared. 

In my Godless world all is bleak. 

Lord God Almighty, come over and bless –  

Bless me!