Asleep Among Spider Lillies

Death hovers over me,
interrupting my view of the night sky,
humming her gentle tunes,
her long dark hair draped over my face,
secluding my vision.
I only see her moonflower skin, rosy red lips, and dark eyes.

The back of my hands rest against the bed of a garden;
flowers of red poison brush against the two of us as the wind perks up.

Gently, she presses
my face with her cold palms.
My shoulders relax as I smile at her touch.

“Do you know my favorite thing about you?”

I always used to think fondly about a moment like this,
my final resting place,
how calming it could be,
my years of solitude and self destruction
cut short by a long-awaited visit.

Her red lips curl into a smile.
She pinches my ears slightly,
her soft voice rising once more:
“You were always ready for me.”

“Whether it was your bed-rotting,
death-filled daydreams,
or those lucky nights of drinking and driving.
You’ve wanted my company for so long.”

With those words,
she kisses my lips, staining them with her red lip-gloss,
and allows her flowers to wrap around my body,
their long stamens pushing me deeper into damp soil.
My skin begins to cool,
numbness looms over me.

“Don’t worry, I’ll visit you one day.”

My breathing slows to a halt,
the thumping of my tired heart ceases.

Death’s presence walks away,
leaving my soulless husk encased
in a coffin of breathing vegetation
with Red Spider Lilies guarding my burial.

My psyche sucked out,
Elevating to new heights I’d have thought to be unimaginable.
But I could feel it being weightlessly woven into the fabric of the cosmos.
The once blocked stars embrace me,
decaying the elements of my soul until our chemical makeup is indistinguishable.
To be everything at once, but nothing at all,
so big and so small.