I closed my eyes and you were gone
safe and sound, out of sight,
we fight this fight and still we die.
she whispered, “just close your eyes,”
and in the early morn of an unassuming day
she slipped from my life.

No one teaches you to hold the right way,
so focused on productivity they forget
what it means to be living, breathing,
until you are left alone in the break of light
and the mist of dawn erases the trace
anyone else was ever there.

“No one can hurt you now”
I whispered to the nothingness
and was greeted back with the sigh
of the wind through motionless trees.
Too afraid to open my eyes
too afraid to believe

Fate isn’t as fickle as she seems.
Breaking through the grey
and giving us gifts of color
that only can be seen until it is time
and the colors, one by one,
close their eyes until you are the last one.

Tumultuous, heartbreaking,
to lose something so breathtaking
so we shun the opportunity for the grey
and hope the traces fade away
within the trails from eyes to chin.
“You’ll be alright,” she whispered
“It’s just the morning light.”

But I stood there, begging for the echoes
of her footsteps to never end,
the sound lost amongst my pleas.
I knew, only what she wanted me to know,
that all that is dead is gone, but not all that is gone is dead,

“You will be alright,”
so I opened my eyes
looked into the grey
and bade my goodbye.