Read this when they bury me

Black dress neat in a dirty coffin,

empty hands echo lifelong commitment to loneliness,

unsaid vows wither into notebook ashes,

parted in life,

’til death did we separate.

Envelope addressed to my favourite stranger,

sealed confessions too great to fit in the deepest grave,

unspoken memories haunt your mind in memorial fields.

Bound by a Holy oath to tell you the truth,

the whole truth,

nothing but the truth.

My photographs told a thousand lies each,

the glow of pretend independence looks like indifference from the outside,

lips sewn shut in shame,

but a plastic smile looks like strength to clueless society.

Let go, move on, give up,

same counsel over and over again,

green grass is out there,

they never saw me dying colourblind.

Sanity lost in the loss,

made a home in the blurred line between true and false,

whispering lies to my soul,

all hope against hope,

time would keep its promise to set me free

from my heart’s enduring dream that you'd come find me.

To escape or to cope,

I got drunk on pride,

taking shots of attention,

draining glasses once filled with momentary lust,

please know I’m not boasting but choked by disgust.

Then I met Regret; a thoughtless roommate,

unwashed dishes of longing left by the sink,

morning to midnight played our songs on repeat,

paid rent with one chore: making the bed,

kept my grief company and your side warm.

Refusing every eviction until It became my best friend,

not yet heartless though the beating is done,

It would be homeless and lost in the void,

had I not made space in this casket for us both in the end.

So say your goodbyes to my body,

but keep yourself from grief,

love cannot die,

this is a fact, not mere belief.

Can’t you feel it breathing through the ether?

The love of my life is the love in my death,

with only God and burnt poems bearing witness;

the price of passion is to love even more while you suffer.

Performance of my lifetime, how did I do?

Surrounded by flowers,

and tears of applause,

needing you was my secret,

like this admission is now yours.