The Library of Time

I stand in the atrium of the Library of Time
Feeling the heartbeat of the dusty tomes
Pledge their allegiance to the frescoes
That imitate life in the span of a cathedral ceiling:
Failure and triumph,
Pride and Humility,
Love and Loss.

Death stands beside me,
His face a skull with an unchanging grin,
A solemn and silent tour guide.
A bony hand extends from his robes
Inviting me to browse
The vast
Collection.

I walk through the empty aisles
That cleave a path through overflowing shelves,
With Death as a shadow behind me
Cast from light that flows from the air itself.
Past leather-bound grimoires
And seemingly endless
Anthologies

These endless volumes hold the lives of Man-
The deaths too, going by my companion.
Some of the books are pristine and elegant;
Others are scarred and weathered indicating
A life lived in Tranquility
or wrought with
Hardship.

Death beckons and I move across a boulevard
Of worn and faded tiles shaping a forgotten mosaic.
An unpolished bronze placard reads "Lost Children,"
And the shelves are cluttered with unbound pages,
Some a short story,
Some just a paragraph
Or a single word.

Creak! Death's outstretched finger leads my eyes
To a slim, blue book, it's spine etched with my name.
I turn the pages and find them blank,
Not even a single chapter in my honor.
Does this mean
My story is
Unfinished?

Death nods
And fades away.
I awaken
In my room with empty pill bottles as bedmates.
I stumble over an empty liquor bottle in the hallway,
And rip up the note I left on table that once said "I can't."
I'm ready to finish writing my story.