Favour

Today, I watched you die.

Drenched in red, a pool of blood

Widening in radius around you

As people stood around

Seemingly mimicking the red

Boundary, as if performing a

Gross death ritual.

I saw the look on your face

As you caught a glance of Death

Before Death caught up with you

And I pretend not to recall

How Death winked at me

An intimate moment before

It reached for you.

Some part of me knew that

I could have saved you,

Perhaps restart the conversation

That we’d abandoned halfway

Two light years back and

Trick Death into thinking

I owed it a favour, a death.

But I feel no guilt as I watch

Your clothes turn crimson, stained

Just like my memory now is

The scarlet blossoming across

My soul, swallowing all the

Ugly blemishes on it, and yet

Somehow marring it even more.

I reach closer, pushing through

The whispering, punishing crowd

For who better to have with you

As you die than your murderer?

And I push back the hair on your

Forehead, leaving streaks of red

But, as I watch, you breathe.

Bloodied hands covering my mouth

I stumble away, and dissolve into

The blackness seething around me

A scream trapped in my throat, I open

My eyes, only to find that I have

Lost my voice, for Death has come

To collect the promised favour.