alternate ending

Clammy fingers punched keys

Against naked jaundiced paper

Smeared by words to eyes once concealed

Heard as toothed-steel bite

Parchments that screamed then killed.

A lost story told turned immortal

Breathing breath to your breathless lungs

Bloody ink bold and black

Against the daylight white

And papers’ hue in color lacked.

Type-written truths were twisted lies

Bottled, fermented which I drank

Intoxicating as false ecstasy

Converted into these words I type

Of an almost reality that you’re alive.

Filled parchments piled up and sing

Whispering unbroken hearts and fields so green

Like the color of young love growing

Not of thorn-pierced fingers and skin

And throats slit by weeds slithering.

Backspace.

Erase.

Fingers persisted to play the keys

As papers flew, torn, and stained

Telling a tale, a chronicle almost lost

A novel of would’ve been if you stayed

A version of your love I just made.

And as you lie under the ground

Beneath cold earth and stone

I forge these words for you alone

An alternate account of a story we once wrote

Ending with a blissful period instead

In the name of your bones I quote.

Back.

Space.

Erase.

Caps Lock.

ERASE.

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Inspired by the movie, Atonement.