Pessimistic Poem

Aidan, 6^th grade

A lone wolf stalked across the rocky outcropping.  She stopped at the edge of the precipice and howled at the moon.  Far below her, in a cave on the bottom of the cliff face, a young boy shudders.  Winter wind bites at his toes, as it groans in the night air.  A grey pallor overtakes the face of a friend, and the stench of death descends upon the camp.  An air of fear coats the cave, turning the air to butter and time to molasses as the second’s inch by.  Soon the flies gather, and maggots writhe on the hard stone.  A red fox steps into the cavern, eyes like gemstones.  But a cold wind has been gathering outside, and now it rushes in, and the fox darts out.  The wind collides with smoke, rising embers from the fire.  The smoke, caught in a vortex shapes itself into a death mask.  A leering skull juts out of the smoke, writhing on a thin neck.  The smoky apparition descends on the dead man, and blood drenches the floor, as death feeds.  Carrion spatters the ground, and a young woman screams.  Death has come for his payment.  This man has been freed from his debt, the debt that all men must pay.  Nothing is immortal; all is ephemeral, hold tight to time, as it slips from your fingers like sand.  Lost chances, deadened loves, still-warm pains, all drifting down to rest, forgotten, like dust on a top shelf.  Possessions are an illusion, we own nothing, nothing is ours, and we are merely borrowers.  Home is a false word, it is like dust on the wind as we, with all of our bravado, stumble along to our end, aware that each step we take is lethal, yet no one cares, for life is so much easier.  Memory is untrustworthy, for our minds are reflections of ourselves, and are we not liars?