If you knew it was the end

If you knew it was the end,

not on your terms,

not by your blade—

would you have lived

more than mere greatness?

Would it be enough

to have smiled at strangers,

to have kept the smallest promises,

to have cupped in your palms

another’s grief?

Would you let the last gust of wind

vibrate within the cage of your rib bones,

each impulse of humor and charisma,

each grain of sanity that clung to the edge,

each humble character you dressed,

every fight-or-flight lodged in your vertebrae?

And to wherever it goes,

would you be so sure

that once uncaged,

you’d be free?

When the body is emptied,

when what you are

rises unmasked from its cage,

and everything that kept you running

is pulled—

could you stake,

hand trembling against the flash,

a setting sun,

a blink of an eye,

that this—

this was freedom?

Could a captured soul,

just fly away?