Stopped

Reading words of feelings past
Learning lessons of loss
Opening my eyes to new tears
Lost years of time remembered.

Paging through yellowing notebooks
Staring up at the moonlit sky
Questioning moments of wonder
And pondering moments of questions.

Purging to anyone who will listen
Putting my grief for all to see
Wearing my heart on my sleeve
Waiting for it to be struck.

A circle of people closes in
They each lend a hand
To lift up he who has fallen
And make the circle whole again.

But the circle divides once,
Twice my eyes cross
As the eternal dance unfolds
And the heart keeps beating

Each beat one step closer to the final
emotional heart attack.
It feels like life cannot go on—
But it does, painful moment by moment.

The darkness quickly lifts
But only to mock its bearer
Sneaking away, it deceives
Only to break back in.

We’ve stopped questioning
Stopped caring about our dearly beloved
Started wondering and wandering
Stopped hoping. Just stopped.