promise of the end

I would like to welcome death,

hang a banner on my door,

prepare a feast,

write a poem

for an old friend whose forgiveness I seek.

But I am afraid to tell you,

afraid that you will be afraid

to see the gentle promise
that death brings.

Because I can love you

and leave you at the same time,

this life in which I do not fit
 there isn't enough time

to dig up all the dirt in my garden
to pay back the debts I owe,
the loves I needed and destroyed
the bodies I touched and breathed in and touched and breathed in again every time
 I work my fingers deep into the earth,
this life of coming
                               and
                                            going.

what's wrong with leaving
this world

at once too much and insignificant?

I leave it each morning

I get to wake up with you,

each night with the cool breeze moving
through the windows,
 across a sky so dark space

is just the beginning,
what a relief
when time stops counting in days
stops being lost or wasted
on measures of things.
instead it just is. and I just am
together we exist until
we don't. that is death's gentle
promise.