Final Girl
Stapleton Nash
An ending drips
Like honey down my chin.
I am as a man of clay,
I cannot feel it on my skin.
I cannot mourn the tumbling of days,
Nor raise a glass to things that stop.
I’ve tasted so many endings before.
I know how much they hurt to swallow,
and how quickly they are digested.
Endings that float and pierce you, once, twice,
and then fade imperceptibly into beginnings.
You forget.
I cannot bear to forget again,
So I am keeping everything out to begin with.
All around me a world is ending.
I sit in my clay skin and wait
And check my clock and itch my neck,
Impatient for a beginning
That I know from experience is coming.
