Requiem

 

I would rather picture you as dead.
Resting in a grave,
your name carved into stone,
final, honest, still.
Green grass grows patiently above you.
Wildflowers gather like quiet witnesses.
The beloved come to visit,
to pray,
to laugh at foolish memories,
to cry over the years that broke us.
They pull the wild grass each month,
a small devotion,
proof that you were once cared for.

That feels more respectful
than seeing you alive in flesh.

Alive, yet swimming in infidelity.
A man perfumed and polished,
changing outfits like disguises,
chasing youth as if aging were a failure.
A heart rotting beneath tailored fabric,
feeding on attention from the young,
from those who do not know your past,
who never earned your name.

You reject your wrinkles,
though they were meant to be embraced.
You beg a world that does not want you
to keep looking.

And we are forced to witness it,
to live inside the humiliation of loving you.

So yes,
I would choose your grave.

There,
you are still.
You are faithful.
You are whole.

In death,
you remain a noble man.