Epitaph Poem by C. I. Meade

You die for the first time but certainly not the last time when your mother burns, taking it all.
So you, the righteous man, grow up crooked, abyssal and tall.
You grow up with a cage around you in the shape of your brother, a gun, and a father who is more like some half-absent god who never heard you pray.
With that you feel yourself becoming smaller every day.
And then one day your brother leaves you. He had hoped for happier things. And once your father leaves too, you don't have anywhere to turn to.
So you find your brother, the prodigal son. You find him grown and broken, his god has asked too much of him and he shakes even at the sight of you.
Next you're dying by his side in a room full of clocks and they're ripping you apart, burning you alive. Your brother is sticking his hand down your throat, trying to pull out the bird that has been lodged in there since you were a child - but that isn't right.
The clocks aren't real. But neither is the bird or the fire. You know you're dead but still you fight.
You remember waking up after to find your skin flayed and to see your organs piled up by your feet and after that, only blue.
When you come back you've forgotten all but the taste of blood and two blue eyes. Your hands have become guns with which you shoot down everyone that loves you.
In the end it's down to three forgotten children: the prodigal son, the righteous man and the seraph.
At night your ashen lungs whisper to you, telling you dreams of a man, who is no longer you, coming and ripping out your burned lungs while you laugh.
In the morning you spit the blood from your mouth and drive away.