A Promise & a Friend

 

When death owes you a kindness, 

he will do it without blinking. 

He will look into your eyes and 

thank you with genuine earnest

for the pleasure. 

Death asks only 

that you pay it forward

and hopes you wear your incisors 

a little more proudly. 

 

That is how death befriended me. 

Not by asking me to smile, 

but by making sure I had a reason to. 

Death told me jokes about the universe

and made me a playlist of all the songs

I had never heard before. 

Death bid me farewell with a kiss

so softly on my cheek that my eyes swelled

and Death did not ask me not to cry,

simply wiped my cheek with soft black cloth

swathed over bony fingers. 

 

I lend every book I read to death

and he always gives them back.

Says to try again.

Read a little slower.

Drink in the words with a more luxurious tongue. 

These memories

he says

are not only yours but the author’s. 

That ones even in my care. 

Take care of their words for them,

for no one else will.