Cold-Blooded

In the beginning
It tasted like eternal bliss
To watch centuries unfold beneath 
my veil of immortality 
A ticking clock poses no threat,
only to those with warm blood
For I am a creature of the dark
Immune to corrosion
Immune to decay 
I thought I had prevailed in life 
For I had no expiration
on my breaths and beating heart
 
I lived poor, I lived rich
A Medieval peasant, a Victorian king 
The same two feet trekked abrased village pavements
As they did the waxed chateau wood
They call this a gift 
To witness the Earth’s wonders without limits
But eternity feels like a never-ending room
that lengthens with every step forward
It is merely a room with the same furniture
Rearranged in a thousand different ways
 
With time,
I have memorized the shape of grief 
long before a new soul is brought into this world
I can hum the prelude to every goodbye
and trace the shape of your final teardrops
I know the angle at which a heart sinks to the core
The angle at which a smile inverts
into its polar opposite twin of sorrow
I have seen centuries bleed into the same soil
On the land that peacefully houses cold bodies
 
All.
but.
mine.
 
I am the damned spectator of the same play,
Only with different actors 
Who are just learning their lines
Stepping foot onto a stage I never left 
I am forced to sit front row
Cursed without the element of surprise 
 
They call this a gift
To never lose my pulse 
To never wrinkle 
But they foolishly forget 
That the universe moves on 
And that the earth will forever revolve 
even if I am outcast from that orbit
But as the days warm and lengthen
And our planet spins closest to the sun
I wish for it to engulf me whole because
I would happily trade centuries of moonlight 
For a serene fate 
Where I could see the sun ascend 
one final time