Angel,
with your silver hair and hands as soft as summer night,
you can hold me here no longer.
You can keep me here no longer,
in your paradise of steel.
It has become a lacquered cage where my wings cannot be free.

Outside in the empty darkness, lonely Death is calling.
He is waiting at the window; black breath and hungry eyes.
He is whispering at the window, of life's secrets and its pleasures.
He is whispering in a voice as sweet and subtle as the sea.

I am listening as he whispers, and he calls me for a walk.
In his voice as slick as shadows he is calling for a walk.
The only price he asks is for me to stand beside him,
for me to walk beside him, and keep him company for awhile
on his dark and endless journey into night.

So, sweet sister, let me rise and follow him through night.
For if I'm to live, then I must follow and taste the bitter fruit of life.
To shudder and breathe,
to break and to bleed.
To fall and falter, but to rise again I need to follow him.

At the end, when I can walk no further
Death will lay me gently by the side.
He will take my skin and soul like a battered coat and hat
leaving me just my bones and a memory of my face.
Then Death will thank me sweetly
for my time and four my soul
and walk slowly on without me
down his endless dusty road.
He'll stride slowly on without me,
never looking back.
Leaving me alone to lie
in the great and empty night.

AcB 12.20.00