"Dear death" by Alexis M Levine

A poem inspired by Emily Dickinson Dear death How can I stay when you, more than life, make me feel seen? They call you cruel, but I have seen the gentleness in your cruelty— the mercy in your ending, the way you unburden bones and hush the screaming thoughts no one else could hear. What if the ones who scream are not cruel, but trying to anchor me to a world they still believe can bloom? And I— have I given everything a chance? Or have I fallen so in love with the idea of not hurting that I’ve forgotten what healing might feel like? Do not rush. But when you come home, come softly. Let me fall like a candle into darkness, like a secret finally heard. But even now, as I write your name with steady hands, something inside me trembles. What if I’m wrong? What if your silence is not peace, but absence? What if the ache I carry is not a curse, but a call— a sign that I was meant to stay, to fight, to feel just a little more? What if the ones who scream are not cruel, but trying to anchor me to a world they still believe can bloom? And I— have I given everything a chance? Or have I fallen so in love with the idea of not hurting that I’ve forgotten what healing might feel like? - Alexis M Levine More from Alexis M Levine ↓@alexandrathepoett on Instagram