I looked death in the eyes.
The contorted,convoluted smile of death.
Death smiled at me.
The garish, nightmarish smile of death.
Death spoke to me.
The scraggly, monstrous voice.
I am to take your soul but where?
You don't deserve heaven, you're not fit for hell,earth is not your place.
I am supposed to end you right here,right now.
Yet I'm not sure if it scares you or I am doing you a favor.
You are supposed to come with me.
Yet even I am scared of you walking behind me.
I came to you unbidden,
Yet I don't know if you knew I was coming or I was living inside of you all your life.
Death was conflicted.
Death had never been conflicted.
I was ready for death but was he ready for me?
I knew he knew me.
He lived right there with me in those midnight sonnets I wrote in the dark.
He smiled at me through the bloods that seeped through my wrist,he lived in the blade.
I wasn't a stranger to death.
Death wasn't a stranger to me,he waved at me,one despondent afternoon.
I knew he was ghoulish.
I knew he was cold and heartless who came unbidden.
I knew the scars he left behind,yet he never stopped,
Like an addict,he kept coming back for more blood.
I knew death was addicted to blood but not mine.
I knew who death was.
He was me.
★Esperanza★