They told me that getting old would be painful.

I thought that meant achy knees or a stiff back,

dreading the cold weather and feeling the weight of the coming storm.

No one told me about the pictures that make your chest tighten,

how letters, yellowed with time, would make your eyes burn.

They didn’t tell me about the pain of empty chairs at Sunday dinners,

of cleaning out houses and holding holidays somewhere else now.

They never told me about the feeling,

that one when you drive by the house you grew up in and all the trees are gone,

the magnolia

and the mulberry

and the maples

where you stabled all your play pretend horses.

And it felt a little silly but you couldn’t help but wonder

if it hurt them when you went away.

No one told me about the choke in your throat

when you choose the song for a aisle

she’s not walking down,

not wearing white for,

not coming back from,

and how it squeezes down tighter and tighter until you can barely breathe

because you still have to choose a stone

that isn’t for her finger.

They told me getting old would be painful.

They didn’t tell me that the dread of colder weather would rush me to that shaded plot, high on the hill at the edge of town,

the one that overlooks the corn fields, all gold and green in the summer,

to bring in the flowers

and the wreaths

and the little lanterns we leave there,

before the coming storm.

I will pull the gnarled weeds that grow where love was planted,

half imagining I can rip away what binds you to the earth,

as if it’s only roots that hold you down there in the darkness.

I will scrub at the name that grows fainter with every season,

scrape at the moss that clings to the chiseled line that was your whole life,

tracing my finger along the little dash that is the culmination

of all your sorrows

and all your joys

and all those stupid monotonous moments that didn’t end up meaning anything at all.

I will rest my head against the cool hollow of your name and ask you how it all ends up like this,

some lacuna carved in rock or earth or flesh, just these empty places where something else used to be.

But I know you don’t know anymore than I do and I will get answers here like I’d get blood, no matter how hard I squeeze.

So I'll just sit with you in our silence for a bit

before I go to the next stone.

Because this is where the family gathers now

and tomorrow, my knees will ache

and my back will be stiff.

And since nobody told me,

I thought I should tell you that

getting old is painful.

I wanted to write you something beautiful.

Something profound,

that might change us.

I sat staring at that paper for what seemed like hours,

running myself in circles trying to find

the perfect order

of magic words…

I tried. I really did.

But the only thing that I could write,

that felt right, was

oh God, how I miss you.

You burned brightly, you loved fiercely,

I was blessed to call you mine,

But you've gone, oh how I'll miss you.

Oh my darling, Clementine.

If I thought that heaven were real

And good souls could qualify,

then by now they’ve made an angel

of my darling Clementine.

So few years we had together.

If I could, I’d share my time,

if it meant just one more day with

my sweet darling Clementine.

Now we lay you beneath the myrtle

Wreathed in flowers come springtime,

Those pinks blossoms all that's left of

forever darling Clementine.

Oh, this little life.

This little life that I have cherished,

much to the amazement of spectators and strangers,

it brims

with more love

and more strength

and more fight

than one little soul should be able to contain.

And I find myself awed by the ferocity of such living.

Because I see the courage in her fearless leaps,

How she scales the giants who populate her world,

hand over hand

climbing

pulling

grabbing

until at last she has perched herself

heaving

upon a shoulder.

Such triump in her stance there.

But then comes the surprise

as she stumbles

then the faith

as she caught

in my arms before

She falls.

She will fall,

She always

but she will not be tempered.

She exists so brilliantly

and she burns so brightly

and it warms this heart I thought

once cold.

They say though she be little, she is fierce

and my God, isn’t she just?

Fierce in all things, in all aspects

of her fragile being,

she hums with exuberance

and thrums with such joy

and she is little

but she is my

amazement.

But she is fading, my sweet girl.

She is growing dimmer by the day,

with every labored breath that she

sips from the air

because it is the ocean for her,

her fire fades,

her flame gutters.

Her little life stifled

a little more.

She seeks me out now,

perfect hands grasping at my own,

and nestles her face

into the crook of my arm

and she struggles to breathe.

So little time left to this little life

and she would have these

moments with me.

Of all the places in her world,

she searches for this one.

She reaches for me

and I hold her.

I will hold her until she lets go,

until she can stay no longer

because there is someplace else she has to be.

I will hold her,

lost in the amazement that

such a little thing

could love so loud.

And I hope I was worthy of this little gift,

of our short days and the years that were

anything but enough,

of the little life

in a little soul

that was

anything

but little.

This little life.

This little life that I cherish,

much to the amazement of spectators and strangers,

brims with more love

and strength

and fight

than one little soul should be able to contain.

And I find myself thinking how apt that is,

this amazement.

Because I see courage

in her fearless leaps, her scaling

of the giants who populate her world.

I see such faith in her sweet face

when she is caught by my hands

before she can fall,

and she tempers herself

in no manner for that

trust.

She exists so brilliantly

and she burns so brightly

and it moves this heart I thought

was stilled.

They say though she be little, she is fierce

and my God, isn’t she just?

Fierce in all things, in all aspects

of her fragile being,

she hums with exuberance

and thrums with unburdened joy

and she is little

but she is

amazement.

And she is fading, my sweet girl.

She is growing dimmer every day,

with every labored breath that she

drinks from the air that

is more ocean

for her,

her fire fades and stifles

this little life a little more.

She seeks me out now,

perfect hands grasping at my own,

hands I hope never brought her

fear or pain,

and nestles her face

into the crook of my arm

and she struggles to breathe.

So little time left to this little life

and she would have these

moments with me.

Of all the places she could be,

she searches for this one.

She reaches for me

and I will hold her until she

is gone,

lost in the amazement that

such a little thing

could love so loud.

And I hope I was worthy of this little gift,

of our short days and the years that were

anything but enough,

of the little life

in a little soul

that was

anything

but little.

do you want to build a snowman,

a no man?

he’s no man.

but I sleep beside this man

made from water trying

so hard to be anything else man.

this ice man

who wants heat man

so he can melt and then be real, man.

do you want to build a snowman?

he said he’s no man

and he ’s got to go man

he said he’s sorry but he knows, man

that he’s no man

he’s wo man

but I want to build a s now man.

You slither underneath my skin,

I taste the taint that you dragged in.

Such jealousy steeps in your veins

A bitter hint of what you’d claim.

Contorting and bending, you’d reshape my bones

Open me wide, make my body your own.

Crack my ribs open and pull them apart,

You’ll need more room so get rid of the heart.

Peel back my spine and crawl into my chest

Perched on my lungs, I’ll surrender my breath.

Squeeze down past my womb and nest in my hips,

Stretch yourself out and insist that it fits.

Meld your skin to my insides and call me your name

We are me I am you we are one and the same.

The purpose of breathing is absent here,

the water filling me where air should be.

Will you become her from the wanting?

Don’t call my name, don’t call me love

With that voice when you have pulled the tide in too high

To leave room for my living.

Far better, far kinder to dash me against the rocks and let me leak

Into the sea, let me again be salt, the blood and the tears and the sea together

in the briny dark.

Call me Ado and grant me mercy, shatter me to pieces and give me back to the cold.

Tell me that my only sin was looking back as my city burned.

I write your name in the wet sand and watch it darken, fill with the ocean, and

Wash away.

Do you think those letters shape you?

Did they create us?

Are you as lost to me as they are?

Am I lost, too?

My footprints do not linger, do not endure, and I can’t see anymore

How I was ever real at all.

Death, long enamored of his mortal charges, watched them ceaselessly. He loved them, in his own way; the way an immortal, ageless being unconstrained by time and space can love the tender existence of a finite and flawed creature. He loved them like the fragile things they were. He was buoyed by their triumphs and burdened by their losses. Their quirks and strange habits brought to him a sense of wonder and amusement. Though, of course at times, he could be heard clucking to himself not unlike a broody mother hen, as his charges were up to something one could assuredly describe as 'no good.'

But...all things considered, they were largely good. Their love could be unconditional, unending even in the presence of Death. It was often he would come to call, beckoned close by the waning cadence of their heartbeats and Death would feel once more the gravity of their devotion to one another. These souls were tiny, luminous vessels who burned with a radiance that far exceeded the little lives they were allotted, and he often thought that they somehow contained every bit of incandescence once attributed solely to the sun. Death marveled at the tides their bonds created, perplexed that they were not swept away by them and dashed madly against the edges of the universe. The currents they drifted in tugged even at his own existence and it made Death cherish them all the more.

And certainly, they would have been drowned were it not for the near invisible filaments strung out between them, a shining spiderweb spun from soul to soul. Each who is loved is tethered to those who love them by a thread, a diaphanous silk line anchoring them together like flickering constellations. Death must sever the living from life, yes, but he must also part the living from love. He would tug gently on the string and each time, his touch would pluck from it a single word, an imploring and tremulous, “Stay.” If one were very lucky and very loved, their passage from Life to Death was accompanied by a symphonic harmony of that single word. There would be a rising supplication born of all those strings at once cleft apart and the crescendo was only the silence left behind when the glow of that tiny soul winked out into darkness.

“Stay.” And often Death allowed it, for just a while longer, because he loved them.

When Death would arrive, punctual to no fault and precise to the second, it meant we must close the book, shutting for good its well-thumbed pages and worrying ourselves no more as to how the story might end. For here our end stood and not at all as we pictured. Perhaps it was just the finality of our own conclusion, of our brightly burning final chapter now extinguished, of all that we were now returned to the ashes and dust whence we had come, that made the thought of Death so dreadful. To gaze upon his pale countenance meant we had arrived at the terminus. This was the end of the line and departures to the left, please. It meant that all we had dreamed about, hoped for, wished of…all of the things that could possibly ‘be’ had already been and there were no more things that would be….Perhaps it was simply this cessation of possibility that made Death so maligned to us, made us dread his attendance and resist his affections.

And it was not because Death was frightening or malevolent that we fought him because, really, Death was neither of those things. Dying could be, of course, but she was unavailable at the moment, what with having her incorporeal hands full of our moribund universe, but Death...was like slipping away to another room from an overcrowded party, one where the good cheer is choking and the revelry a miasma and the small talk almost metastatic. It is the studious defection away from the noise, a flight from the clammer of those busy with the brilliance of living, escaping through the door that allows you, finally, out into that brisk night. Death is the first inhalation where your chest burns with the cold of it, your face stings with the chill of it, and beneath a sky tossed heavy with stars, you are free. You are at last unbound, undone from the mortal coil and unleashed into the endless.

Death had always been fond of an Irish goodbye.

Here in this moment, the heart of Death hung heavy, as he understood he must now take The Last. He knew without hesitating where he would find her, as sometime before Death had claimed that which was most dear to her, the Last One's most Beloved.

When Death had come for her Beloved, he had felt the familiar ache of the coming loss, the pull of the silk, the hum of the string. But it was all sharpened, almost too painful to be near, and when Death leaned closed to listen, he had understood. The Beloved had known that with his departure, the Last would be truly alone. He understood that they were the only two who remained, that no other souls had weathered the winding down of our world as it had dimmed and grown colder. Death had heard the hushed prayers that occupied the waking hours, and often the dreams, still left to her Beloved. He heard the plea that she not be forsaken in this place, that she was good and undeserving of such a torment, that Death grant them mercy and take her first…but even Death did not decide these things and so he had come for the Beloved first.

Death had taken the string in one hand, lamenting in his own silence that he must mar the gossamer sheen of it, that he would quell forever the sweet, familiar song of it. The Beloved had kissed the Last one more time and, taking her face into his hands, pressed his forehead to hers, desperate to memorize the face he had loved in life and would carry with him now into Death. He looked once more into her eyes, finding them empty of guile or malice and full only of love, and here Death had quieted the aching in his heart. Death gifted him with stillness, allowing the Beloved a moment of memories in place of the terrible knowledge that she would be alone in a way that no mortal soul had ever been. It was just a moment of kindness, but it was enough.

The Beloved was taken back to the day when he and The Last were first brought together, and the memories that should have faded with time like well-loved toys were still vivid, kept vibrant through the unexplainable sorcery held by all the things we cherish.

It was when the Beloved had wrapped himself in these moments, saw himself with his hands cupping the sweet face of The Last, that Death had taken him by the arm, severed the ties that held him to life, and love, and The Last, and they had simply stepped away. Here in this hushed lacuna, after the last lingering echo of a single word had withered away into nothing, was where she had become The Last.

Now, Death must come for her. Settling next to the small soul who had been left behind, he wondered at how such devotion had endured in a thing so slight. Death was forever enthralled of them, these good ones, and he marveled at the strength that nestled in such frail beings. And they were frail, weren’t they?

The eyes of The Last had once been dark and shining, lined with bristly lashes and quick to chase the form of her Beloved to whatever far reaches he might venture. Now they were dull, milky orbs that could make out only shapes, the vaguest of forms that were all some variety or another of gray shadows. A dying world emits little noise, and this was perhaps a blessing, as her hearing had almost entirely deserted her as well. It might have been less cruel if it had gone completely, as sometimes The Last was certain she heard someone calling for her, very faintly and from very far away. She would rise, stiff joints shivering to hold her thin body upright, and she would twist her face towards the sound, hoping to catch it on some rising wind. But it would fade away, always, as if it never were, and likely, it hadn't been and she would lay herself down gently, once more sheltered in the place where he had left her, and she waited. It was here that Death had found the Last, still waiting for whatever it was that would bring her Beloved back to her.

Death reached out to trace the graying fur that speckled the dog’s muzzle. He followed the path it took from her nose across her cheeks to where it finally spread out like the wings of some snowy moth to encircle her eyes. As he did so, The Last lifted her head, an enormous task with what little life her body still held. She laid it across his knee with a sigh. Death placed his hand lightly between her ears, feeling the angles of her bones and the lightness that remained to her being. At his touch, he heard the labored drumming of her tail against the ground. Once...twice... and then The Last could do it no more. She only gazed up at Death patiently. Her heart, with its light so near to being extinguished, was comforted to no longer be alone. Death stroked her head and The Last closed her eyes.

They sat this way awhile longer, Death and the dog, in the backyard of the house on a planet in a world where nobody lived anymore but this little soul, tattered and tired and so terribly alone.

Death knew it was her time.

He listened intently, prepared to offer her the stillness he granted these good souls, but instead found himself surprised. For the first time in... all time, there existed for him no need to quiet a restless mind. There was no need to bequeath the mercy of comfort as The Last did not cling here. She did not desire to stay. She would not fight. She only waited.

Uncertain, Death reached for the string as he had always done but this time, it was not the word ‘stay’ that sang out across the universe when he plucked the strand. There was no mournful beseeching, no doleful imploring. It was one word, yes, but it was decidedly unexpected.

It was her name.

Her name shone clear and brilliant as it rolled across the void. It was at once cataclysm and miracle, wild and unhindered and she heard it without question. Like the thunderous crashing of waves roiling upon the shoreline, her name broke over her and she heard it. She was awash in it.

Her Beloved was calling her home.

For one brief moment, unfathomable to we who can be ushered away by Death, the entirety of the universe existed only as her name.

As the final notes of that word began to dissolve away, Death sensed it. The Last was gone. She had departed without him and she was no longer the last.

And so our world was emptied of its last good and mortal soul, and it was only the lingering ripples left from our dying that prove we ever lived at all. All was still and quiet as Death thought of the dog, missing quite suddenly the weight of her head laid upon his knees. Death felt very empty and he sighed, but there was no one to hear it.

Death, long enamored of his mortal charges, watched them ceaselessly. He loved them, in his own way; the way an immortal, ageless being unconstrained by time and space can love the tender existence of a finite and flawed creature. He loved them like the fragile things they were. He was buoyed by their triumphs and burdened by their losses. Their quirks and strange habits brought to him a sense of wonder, though at times he could be heard clucking to himself, not unlike a broody mother hen, as his charges were up to something one might describe as 'no good.'

But...all things considered, they were largely good. Their love could be unconditional, boundless, unending even in the presence of Death. It was often he would come to call and, beckoned closer by the waning cadence of their heartbeats, would feel the pull of their devotion to one another. There existed between all those who were loved a cord of spider-fine silk, nearly invisible and stretched tight between them as if to keep them from his hands just awhile longer. The taut string would sing with his gentle tug, plucking from it a singular word, an imploring and tremulous, “Stay.” And often Death allowed it, for just a while longer, because he loved them.

Oh, the good ones were always the hardest to take. Not because Death was frightening or malevolent because, really, Death was neither of those things. Dying could be, of course, but Death...was like slipping away to another room from an overcrowded party, one where the good cheer is choking and the revelry a miasma and the small talk almost metastatic. It is the studious defection away from the noise, a flight from the clammer of those busy with the brilliance of living, through the door that allows you, finally, out into that brisk night. Death is the first inhalation where your chest burns with the cold of it, your face stings with the chill of it, and beneath a sky tossed heavy with stars, you are free. You are at last unbound, undone from the mortal coil and unleashed into the endless. Death had always been fond of an Irish goodbye.

When Death would arrive, punctual to no fault and precise to the second, it meant we must close the book, shutting for good its well-thumbed pages and worrying ourselves no more at how the story might end. For here our end stood, not at all as we pictured. Perhaps it was just the finality of our own conclusion, of our brightly burning final chapter now extinguished, that made the thought of Death so fearsome. To gaze upon that countenance meant we had arrived at the terminus, end of the line, time to depart. It meant that all we had dreamed about, hoped for, wished of…all of the things that could possibly be had already been and there were no more things that could be….Perhaps this was what made Death so maligned to us, made us dread his attendance and resist his attentions.

The heart of Death was heavy, as he understood he must now take The Last. He knew it must be done and he knew where he would find her, as sometime before Death had claimed that which was most dear to her, the Last One's most Beloved. When Death had come for her Beloved, he had felt the familiar ache, the pull of the silk, heard the trill of the string. But it was all sharpened, almost too painful to be near, and when Death leaned closed to listen, he had understood. The Beloved had known that with his parting, the Last would truly be alone, the singular mortal soul left behind in a world that had very nearly finished dying. The Beloved wanted nothing more than to remain here beside her and he had often hoped that Death would come for her first so that she would not be alone, that she would not end her days only waiting for his return, but even Death did not decide these things and so he had come for the Beloved first.

Death had taken the string in one hand, lamenting in his own silence that he must mar the gossamer sheen of it, that he would quell forever the sweet, familiar song of it. The Beloved had kissed the Last one more time and, taking her face into his hands, pressed his forehead to hers, desperate to memorize the face he had loved in life and would carry with him now into Death. He looked once more into her eyes, finding them empty of guile or malice and full only of love, and here Death had quieted the aching in his heart. Death gifted him with stillness, allowing the Beloved a moment of memories in place of the terrible knowledge that she would be alone in a way that no mortal soul had ever been. It was just a moment of kindness, but it was enough. The Beloved was taken back to the day when he and The Last were first brought together, and the memories that should have faded with time like well-loved toys were still vivid, kept vibrant through the unexplainable sorcery held by all the things we cherish.

It was when the Beloved had wrapped himself in these moments, saw himself with his hands cupping the sweet face of The Last, that Death had taken him by the arm, severed the ties that held him to life, and they had simply stepped away. It was in this hushed lacuna, after the last lingering echo of a single word had withered away into nothing, that she had become The Last.

Now, Death had come for her. Settling next to the small soul who had been left behind, he wondered at how such devotion had endured in a thing so slight. Death was forever enthralled of them, these good ones, and he marveled at the strength that nestled in such frail beings. And they were frail, weren’t they? The eyes of The Last had once been dark and shining, lined with bristly lashes and quick to chase the form of her Beloved to whatever far reaches he might venture. Now they were dull, milky orbs that could make out only shapes, the vaguest of forms that were all some variety or another of gray shadows. A dying world emits little noise, and this was perhaps a blessing, as her hearing had almost entirely deserted her as well. It might have been less cruel if it had gone completely, as sometimes The Last was certain she heard someone calling for her, very faintly and from very far away. She would rise, stiff joints shivering to hold her thin body upright, and she would twist her face towards the sound, hoping to catch it on some rising wind. But it would fade away, always, as if it never were, and likely, it hadn't been and she would lay herself down gently, once more sheltered in the place where he had left her, and she waited. It was here that Death had found the Last, still waiting for whatever it was that would bring her Beloved back to her.

Death reached out to trace the graying fur that speckled the dog’s muzzle, following its path from her nose across her cheeks to where it finally spread out like the wings of some snowy moth to encircle her eyes. As he did so, The Last lifted her head, an enormous task with what little life her body still held, and laid it across his knee. Death placed his hand on her head, feeling the angles of her bones and the lightness of her being, and heard the labored drumming of her tail against the ground. Once, twice, and then The Last could do it no more. She only gazed up at Death patiently, her heart, so soon to be stilled, comforted to no longer be alone. Death stroked her head, and she closed her eyes, and as the time between her breaths grew longer and longer, he knew it was time.

So they sat this way, Death and the dog, in the backyard of the house on a planet in a world where nobody lived anymore, only this little soul, tired and on the precipice of the end. Death listened and was surprised. For the first time in all time, he had no need to quiet a restless mind. He had no need to bequeath the mercy of memories to her. She was waiting. Only waiting.

Death reached for the string as he had always done, expecting her to cling still to life and this grizzled world because it was all she had known, but this time, it was not the word ‘stay’ that sang out across the universe. There was no mournful beseeching, no doleful imploring. It was only her name. It was clear and brilliant as it rolled across the void, cutting through it without hesitation and she heard it. For one brief moment, unfathomable to we who can be ushered away by Death, the entirety of the universe existed only as her name.

She would wait no more. Her Beloved was calling her home. And so she went and she was no longer the last.

And so our world was emptied of its last good soul, and it was only the lingering ripples of our dying that prove we ever lived at all. All was still and quiet as Death thought of the dog, missing quite suddenly the weight of her head laid upon his knees. Death felt very empty and he sighed, but there was no one to hear it.