The day to die

The old woman who no one remembered was once young,
Walked up those stairs to the attic,
Her arthritic legs slowly carrying her,
Towards that dark place,
Where she stored all her secrets.
Secrets that noone ever knew.
The winter's sun barely shone today,
She sensed a certain coldness in her soul,
Today might be the day,
She thought,
That this shell would not me belong.
She opened the creaky door,
Her fingers trembling,
Fear, anticipation,
Inflicted upon her ol' heart.
She unlocked that old dusty chest,
The one she bought from an old shopkeeper,
From New England when she was very young.
The dust danced in the flickering rays of the ending day.
Her eyes shone with tears,
As her fingers grazed the crumbling letters and those old photographs.
She found some old 45s,
Put them on,
Humming softly to those melodies of old.
The ones she used to dance to,
When her young legs ran free.
She went through the photographs
Looking for the one closest to her heart.
The one,
Of a handsome young man,
Who was lost to her.
The one,
Who went out to sea on a spring day,
And never returned when winter came and gone.
A tear slid down her weathered face,
But she was smiling,
As she remembered with sudden clarity,
The moments they had stolen together
Before the sea called him away.
Days of swimming in the warm ocean of Hawaii,
Under the soft moonlight.
Days they stood in awe
Of Niagara Falls
The Grand Canyon,
And the petrified woods of Wyoming.
Days of running free in the fields of Vermont,
Till their faces grew red
And they lay under the skies
Watching the clouds change their shapes.
Ice cream on summer days,
She remembered the cool tingling sweetness on her tongue,
She could almost taste it now.
The feel of his arms when he held her close,
The softness in his eyes when he looked at her,
The gentleness of his voice when he spoke her name,
The wild beating of her own heart.
He had made her feel alive.
She held that faded photograph,
Carried it down the longest stairs
To where she would sleep tonight
As she awaits her eternal slumber,
With her memories of him,
Which, unlike her ragged body,
Had withstood the ravages of time.