Crucified my essence

And with it bled my life

Running lazily down

Into a dilapidated golden chalice,

Held firmly in your hands.

Drink this bitter Elixir,

Bring my encrimsoned life to your lips,

Absolve your sins and revive your soul

For loss must be worth a miniscule gain.

Now I tread along the barren shores,

A Cypress grove looming to the right;

The silken water sending droplets in the air

Burning away the flesh

As my eyes follow each soul step onto the barge.

Why this torment?

Did not you gain enough

From my sacrificial blood?

You have openly forsaken my grave,

Wrapped me in a soiled linen cloth

And left me sitting placidly on a rocking chair.

Sometimes, I feel your hand

Caressing my decaying face,

Attempting to extract one more morsel

For your soul has turned astray once more

Due to your shattered words.

Another time-

Faintly glowing against the black shroud sky-

I beheld your emaciated form

Reaching ever meekly yet viciously out to me.

It was then the barge opened its gate

Welcoming me warmly on,

Yet then you disappeared

And with you my redemption.

Had you buried me then with yourself,

In hope that a final drop

Of the acerbic Elixir of my Soul

Would effuse and be absorbed

In the moist soil for you to suckle out?

Shattered words but bring shattered hopes.

The barge has eddied past once more,

Solitude sweeping in with its receding trail,

But in the path of my wandering

A lilac bloomed anew,

Giving the Cypress trees a foe,

As I journey on-

Life forsaken,

Death denied-

Along the River Styx.