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Relative Grief by JSnaith, literature
Relative Grief
I try not to study your face or look at you. They tell me you’re awake, but your eyes are sightless – dead, open and staring. I wonder what they see, if they see anything at all. I wonder if they are preparing you for where you will be going. Each laboured breath grates across me. Your arrhythmic breathing keeping me on edge. Part of me hopes it will be soon, because I know you are suffering. Part of me doesn’t want it to stop, doesn’t want to let you go. This moment is cruel. You left me years ago, and I was left to wonder why you were gone. What had taken you away from me. I was only a child, too young to understand the strange ways that adults behave, and the complexity of their relationships. For a long time, I hated you, hated the name you gave me, hated the fact I could see your face within my own in the mirror. Even after we found each other it took a long time before we could understand each other. Therein lies the cruelty. To have finally reached that point; and now once
Renewal of Our Vows - NPWM 9 by Haegun, literature
Renewal of Our Vows - NPWM 9
De mortuis nil nisi bonum
Say nothing but good of the dead
Unless they come back to visit
Nightly and fill your life with dread.
“Omnia vincit amor,”
Love conquers all things, she said
“et nos cedaus amori”
Let us yield to love instead.
Her lips met mine and so we kissed
Her breath smelled of the grave
Her eyes met mine and I was trapped
And lost my chance my soul to save.
“Mors mihi lucrum,” she did say
“Death to me is reward,’ and now
I will offer the same to you
Eternal life I do bestow
“Mors tua, vita mea”
Your death, my life
A happy trade I would say
Take me again as your wife