By C.C. Rayne
Everyone around you is drifting closer to it. Every day.
Death, the fox that walks around your house in
slow concentric circles.
You should talk to your doctor,
and come out to your father,
and tell your ex he’s the one thing you regret.
Or maybe don’t. Die mysterious.
Die holding love to your chest,
and hope that it follows you
through the dark door.
But then there’s less for everyone to have.
Write that thing that makes your chest hurt to think about.
Throw yourself towards your dreams –
penniless, perhaps, maybe furthering the end,
but conquering the fear of never really living
in the first place.
And when the fox turns up at the front door,
you’ll know this:
death will always be worst
when it’s not there for you.
You may wish that it is you who’s called,
you who wanders instead.
But the tricky miracle is to keep on living.
Bared heart, open chest.
To drift, to dream,
to die conspicuously.
To suffer the love that everyone leaves behind.
C. C. Rayne is a writer and actor on the East Coast. C. C’s stories can be read in such places as The Deeps, The Razor, HAD, and Demons & Death Drops. C. C.’s poetry can be read in Rough Cut Press, Soft Star Magazine, Eye to the Telescope, and moth eaten mag. You can find C. C. on Twitter @cc_rayne.
