Lamentations of the Living

Well for those of you who didn't know, our fellow blogger Alexia Rue died a short while ago. She was an amazing person and this poem is for her.

Lamentations of the Living

Pale and still she lies there

So young and yet so brave

Surrounded by a noisy convocation

Of green coated doctors and beeping machines

She is separated from them

By the most impenetrable veil of all

The unconquerable divide

The cold black barrier of death

Plagued all her life by extremity

She plunged from depression to mania

From blackest mood to fevered energy

Never at rest

Until now

And as she lies there on the table

The battle is over, the struggle is lost

With a terrible price, a disastrous cost

The loss of a life

The death of a friend

A family now torn apart

The end of the end

And as tears fall

Onto her face

With her eyes that can’t see

Her hands that can’t touch

Her heart that can no longer love

Empty orbs and a soulless shell

The final remains

Of Alexia

As silence is shattered by grief

A heart rending howl of loss

Of sheer devastation

The sound of a hole

A giant void, vast and unreachable

That cannot be filled

The tears fall thicker and faster

Cascading down her face

Each little drop, of salt and sorrow

Serve only to magnify the pain

Of those left behind.

And as the warmth and laughter seeped away

Along with her life

Replaced by a ghastly cold

And a frail otherness

All that was said:

The lamentations of the living

Are the songs of the dead