Poem: "I Am Death" by M Teresa Clayton

I Am Death

M Teresa Clayton

Someone, please wake me up from these dreams.

I’m running from nothings chasing me out there.

I hear the deep echoing of my screams,

This is not a dream, wake me from this nightmare.

Are you whispering my name? I can’t find

you in this spectral place, lost and confused.

Am I alive? Am I losing my mind?

There is laughter from those who seem amused.

Shake me until I open my eyes;

This strange reality should never be seen.

I watch as my reality dies.

Am I lost again, inside the in between?

Are my desires no more than pretense?

I try to find them somewhere within my heart.

The fog is thick, the sound intense.

I search for what we lost when we fell apart.

I am so tired of being alone,

I’m too weak to reach out to you there.

The cold winds have chilled me through blood and bone,

This truth I never wanted to bear.

I can feel the tears tracing down my face,

like razors cutting my delicate skin.

I’ll never forget what can’t be erased -

Where happiness ends, and the terrors begin.

It is harder to breathe in this blue mist,

Hear me, I’m crying, please awaken me.

I cannot feel these lips that once were kissed

By you - tell me, where have they taken me?

Lost behind walls, visions surrounding,

Cannibals awaiting their next meal.

The echo of my pleas resounding,

Can you teach me, once more, how to feel?

Will you recognize me if I return?

I walk in circles, seeking a way

to escape hell and fires that burn.

I needed you to ask me to stay.

Do not search, I don’t exist anymore,

I surrendered to those who claimed me.

Life stopped when you walked out of that door,

Someone else found me and renamed me.

Does anyone out there hear my sigh?

If so, send me a sign to remind.

Was I safe in your arms, just to die

and fall into dreams you cannot find?

If I awaken and you’re the dream

I’ll fall back to sleep, accepting death

Hoping to find that place as it seemed

Leaving behind, this, my final breath.

My breast has stopped the rising and fall,

I see the darkness that blocks the light.

Like we never existed at all,

Everything changed, shadows in the night.

I can smell the soil pushed o’er me,

You’re crying, what are you afraid of?

I am death. I will never be free,

and cannot return to you, my love.