Have you seen death?
The man asked me
Yes
I replied
I have seen it
In the mind of a murderer
In the eyes of a corpse
And in the blood of my beloved
I have touched it
In the last moments of life
In the first moments of birth
And when sickness overcomes your people
In the between years
When they are not yet old or young enough
To have seen it in much time
Then you have known loss grief
And the blank stares of the taken?
Asked the man
I have
I have seen the unseen
Done the undoable
And loved the unloved
I have helped outcasts
The rich
The poor
And everyone else
In the middle
I have fed the starved
Given shelter to the homeless
And helped nurture young
All because your people
Have no dignity
No compassion
And no strength to stand up
For those others in need
I said
Then you know that you
Must go far away
Leave this dingy place
And become a taken
Because of your knowledge
Of emotion
Of love
And of us?
Because of your hate
Towards my kind
And because of your thoughts pointed
Towards our creator?
Because of your impact
On the awful
And the great
On the new
And the old
On our jailers
And our sinners
And on our holy
And clean?
Asked the man
As he reached into his pocket
And pulled out a gun
I do
I nodded
I will go
Willingly
To the taken
The rejoice in the lost world
With the ones
Who are no longer here
With the dead
And alone
To help them with their troubles
Of being in a place
Very different
Then this one here
This place between life and death
Between hatred and love
And between war and peace
I understand
That my time here
Is up
I said
With this
The man held it up
The gun
The taker
And pulled the trigger
To my chest
My heart
Smirking
While he watched for a break
In my spirit
While I fell to the ground
Coughing as my lungs were flooded
With my own blood
I felt the warm tears
Fall down my cheeks
And looked around myself
At all I would miss
Would never take care of again
Crying
In pain
And sorrow
I choked out
My last words
I am going now
To help more of your people
Your kin who have fallen
To my same dreadful fate
You kill the unwanted
The unloved
The untouchables
But I will see you
Someday
Somehow
In the lost world
And we shall greet each other
Like kin
But I will remember this day
Though you may not
Do not think I will have learned
To hate
Because I never will
Then my eyes fluttered closed
And I lay down
Fading
On the hard ground
I was dead
Gone
Never seen
Or heard again
But I was still there
In the form of imprints
I was there
In the hearts of the ones
I loved
But it was many years
Before I saw anyone of them
Again
Many years before they too
Were gone
Dead
And taken.