Leaf

The umbilical cord has been severed,

ceasing the life-giving flow.

I am given to the wind,

directionless to blow.

To and fro, I twist, and spiral, and mesh

into a heap of like souls,

with crisp for flesh.

A crosshatch of veins

marred by waning youth.

A somber descent,

a disquieting truth.

For my days are now numbered,

the hours tick down.

I feel the stiffness encroaching,

vitality impounded.

My color is missing,

echoes of memory taunt.

All the love I beheld from overhead

like a haunt...

And now I am haunted,

hemorrhaging prose.

A violent resistance—

I haunt my ghosts.

All the love I beheld in the park

on those days,

from burgeoning souls

in life's greenest phase...

I watched them revisit.

Their visits still play

in the dredges of memory,

on fractured display.

Little I wouldn't give to recapture

those days,

but I'm aware forward is

the only viable way.

My exit is swift,

an unfelt guarantee.

I shall melt with the grasses,

and then cease to be;

a future green to feed.

Vestiges of defiance

flash in my eyes.

I am wont to feel abandoned,

cannibalized.

Stranded in myself

as discolorment climbs,

chilling my marrow,

scaling my spine.

I fall away at my edges,

trampled underfoot

by the young loves I once sheltered.

I cede my input.

I crunch to catch their ears,

a futile bid for attention.

But my presence eludes both

their minds and their mention.

My voice dries to dust,

as I slowly fold in.

Flesh gathering taut,

resistance pulled thin.

I reach for the mimic-sun streetlamp.

Pain skewing my thought.

I opt to revive

and not fade on the spot.

But the echoes of Fall are fallen,

fading with me, and soon shall impend...

The ground will turn to December's

spotless-white skin.

And the driven snow will drive me

to a place I've never been.

My future cemented, I grapple for poise.

How shall I handle this—shall

I weep or rejoice?

Rejoice that, while unnoticed, I held the rain

from the heads of the lovebirds

who caused me such pain?

That though I may falter, and though I may grieve,

I looked after the homeless

and gave them reprieve?

That the little girl who used to talk to my tree

and cry into its waist

is now hopefully in a better way,

in a better place...

Maybe one day the billboards

in the park will wear her face.

Lawyer, doctor, pop star...

May she never be erased.

Shall I rejoice that I have the foresight

to know

how short my time is,

as the seconds go and go...

One final eve, that's all I ask.

To watch sunset bruise the skyline,

and heal toward a nightfall vast.

And may it pour itself out

onto my bruised heart,

and grant me kindred peace.

May my dissolution bring about

a blissful, soft release.

And may my descent leave

an echo that rings still,

in just one tiny mind.

This is my testament and will.

And if no human eye will blur for me,

may the heavens briefly cry.

For now,

I bid a soft farewell.

thoughts sinking

mind slowing

goodbye

The umbilical cord has been severed,

ceasing the life-giving flow.

I am given to the wind,

directionless to blow.

To and fro, I twist, and spiral, and mesh

into a heap of like souls,

with crisp for flesh.

_________________________________

(Old-ish poem of mine from Wattpad. Some alterations made.)