A Dirge

It was all too morbidly mortal to bear.

Dead at Three fifteen and seventeen seconds, the doctors had dryly announced.

There would be one less forest in Washington state to take part in the beauty of what would have been, matrimony.

Eagerly waiting anniversary presents would soon become coldly hawked, replacing sentimental value with that of pocket change.

There would be one less lake in a wintery, frozen Massachusetts to see a pair of lovers' skate marks engraved into the ice, like the inscription of a sullied promise ring, tossed aside.

These and so many more vivid hopes, and distant memories, and smiling photographs timidly peaked their way out of a little black box in the center of a satin cover, as dense with melancholy substance as the heavy heart that was burying it.

I took one last glance of the contents, when my throat deftly fastened itself into a knot that it had been practicing for years, and it was then that I could no longer hold it in.

It hurt, everything hurt. But the most paramount pain that cut into me was the thought somewhere in this universe,

This endless expanse of void,

There was a place where all things went to when they had died. And in there, somewhere, a couple had finally held each other.

It could have been the tears blurring my vision, but I could almost swear I saw you and me, dancing together side by side, in oblivion.

I saw you smile with me one last time.

It was all too morbidly mortal to bear.