When Memories End Poem by Zoe Guillory

I stared down at the body in the casket.
Small, broken: her body like my soul.
Everyone bent to kiss her head;
I did not. I did not want Death
to be passed on to me. I did not want
to be ended. I had had no time.
Time to express each and every idea.
What they meant to me.
My memories and why I stored them.
Time to learn others' ideas
and morph and shape them
until I could finally understand.
My heart raced against itself
in a race with no winner.
My breath came out in sputters and tears
flooded the casket before me.
WHAT IF I WOULDN'T HAVE TIME...
And I kissed her forehead.
Her ideas were no longer in use,
her memories erased from the Book
of Time, never to be retrieved.
I respected the loss.
My loss.
Her loss.
The world's loss.