Stephen.

Someone had sealed his eyes.

The long wood overcoat lay open, cradling the being.

What seemed a bag of bones,

there,

I beheld him.

A dreadful calamity swallowing life's pulse.

The end had come.

His body wrapped with a blue suit,

this was not him

this was not how I remembered him.

His pale skin, highlighted with paint.

The muscles relaxed throughout his bloodless face,

a small incision near the jugular uttered pain.

His eyes, no longer bewitched.

fastened.

My fist unraveled by my side

quivering

I felt the intensity.

Lifting my arm,

I denied myself.

His hands had been crossed showing some sort of innocence.

The blood under his fingernails sat in silence as if to taunt me

and the holes in his knuckles told of a messy end.

I kissed his straw hair

feeling robbed.

Robbed, even of the things we did not share.