What if the true tragedy of living forever isn’t watching others pass away, but holding onto love long after their memories fade into shadow?
Verse I
I met her where the winter dragged its fingers through the rain,
Where every lamp was trembling, like a heart that’s full of pain.
She sat beneath a churchyard clock that coughed its rusted chime,
A girl of thirty fleeting years afraid of running out of time.
She watched the mourners leave the graves and vanish down the street,
And counted every fallen soul for which she would never meet.
“We’re strangers in a crowded room, all terrified to speak,
And every hand outstretched, withdrawn by fear that runs too deep.”
I laughed beneath the moonlight though the sound came out too thin,
For I had worn her loneliness beneath immortal skin.
I’d crossed a thousand centuries and every kingdom’s fall,
Yet in merely 30 years, she had already felt loneliness to her core.
Verse II
I’d watched my children turn to dust, my dearest friends grow old,
I’d buried every hand I’d held, watched every heart grow cold.
They called my curse a gift, as though forever made me blessed.
But immortality’s an endless torment, every soul you meet repossessed.
She never tried to mend me, never told me not to grieve.
She simply held my trembling hand and gave me room to breathe.
And after all those centuries of standing on my own,
I found a place beside her where I didn’t feel alone.
Chorus
She feared death because it waited at the end of every road,
I feared life because it stretched beyond what any heart could hold.
She had so little time to live, I had too much to bear.
Two souls beneath a dying moon, both desperate for someone to be there.
For what is all eternity if no one stays to share and see?
And what is one brief lifetime if you’re not sharing the memories?
Death waits a lifetime to reap the flesh, and relishes the role,
But loneliness is the darkness that will dim a blazing soul.
Verse III
The seasons turned around us, and the years began to fly.
She taught my heart to beat again, I taught her not to hide.
But silver threaded through her hair with every passing spring,
And every year I loved her more, I feared what time would bring.
Her hands grew thin, her steps grew slow, mine never seemed to change.
I watched the future take her piece by piece, and couldn’t turn away.
Some nights she’d wake and hold me, asking softly, “When I’m gone,
Will you remember how I laughed? Will you remember this song?”
Verse IV
The winter came to claim her. The doctors spoke in vain.
I would have traded all my centuries to take away her pain.
She touched my face. Her fingers felt like feathers in the snow.
“Don’t spend our final moments fearing what you cannot know.”
“You’ve spent your life escaping death, believing it was hell.
But look at all the life we lived, the stories we could tell.
I was afraid of leaving. You were scared of where I might go.
But neither one of us is lost, neither one will be alone.”
She kissed me, and I held her as the last light left her eyes,
A final breath of silence where we traded our goodbyes.
No reaper came to claim her, for it’s not what haunted us you see…
It was being left alone again, with all my grief that haunted me.
Bridge
Yet crueller still than death itself,
The wound beneath the years,
Is watching cherished memories fade
Through countless silent tears.
The colour of her favourite dress,
The laughter in her eyes,
The thousand little details time
So quietly unties.
For even immortality
Cannot command the mind,
To keep each precious fragment
Of the souls we leave behind.
Yet something still remains of her
Where memory grows thin,
A lantern in the darkness
That still warms me from within.
For love is carved far deeper
Than remembrance can descend,
Beyond the reach of age and time,
Beyond what years can rend.
Outro
When the mind is fading,
When the body turns to dust,
When every treasured memento
Surrenders to the rust,
The love we gave, the love we held,
The love that lit the way,
Becomes the stubborn little star
That never fades away.
I visit where the churchyard clock
Still coughs its rusted chime,
And sit beside the weathered stone
Surrendered now to time.
The moon still paints the marble white,
The cold wind still consoles.
You whisper:
“Love is not the opposite of death.”
“It’s the cure for lonely souls.”
I cannot hear your voice now
As I heard it long ago,
Nor perfectly recall the face
I loved through frost and snow.
But still you brighten empty rooms,
And soften every scar.
For memory made me know you.
But love is who we are.
— The Red Pill Poet 🥀