In this one small act
-- miniscule, undetected by almost
everyone --
there is the end of the world

A heartbeat steady and sure, stopped
by an unseen hand
vibrations stilled
the silence echoing through
a suddenly empty skull

I wish that I could hear what some might say should pass
for reasons why.

In this, there is no vast beyond, no other side;
the existence thereof is inconsequential
anyway
when one is there
and one is here

In the night sounds, I sit waiting
to hear the low thud of a string plucked,
reverberating

Nothing

Just the high-pitched sounds of ignorant, lucky things
with wings.

We are reduced in this to nothing more than the first thing that we knew 

I am three years old and watching
my father melt into my mother
the universe closed in around them

I could feel it then, the nothing 
the curtain coming down, closing off the reality
of permanence
the shape of letting go.