Last Words

I didn't see it coming
Through the fog of bliss, the haze of naïveté
I couldn't see the gleam of the sharpened blade of the axe
Until it was too late
Too late to salvage whatever shred of my former self remained
Too late to stop my blood from running down to stain your perfect white sheets a deep shade of crimson
Your eyes were indifferent
And your lips were unmoving as you spoke my final sacrament
"Any last words?"

Just know that I loved you
And please don't ask why
I don't have an answer to give
Everything I had you took from me
All I ever was is lying broken on your bedroom floor
Bound by fragments of invented memories
And ashes of photographs never taken
In places that never existed
Of moments that never occurred
All that sustained me and kept me from the darkness
Is nothing more than a ghost that haunts these sheets still
Tangled up in the memory of sleepless nights
Lingering flashes of entangled fingers and limbs and souls
The sweat that will never be completely washed away
That will remain an invisible stain on these fabrics to all but myself and some part of you that never was
All you gave me was a need that can never be fulfilled
A hunger that can never be sated
The shudder as your lips brushed my skin
The paths of fire your fingertips traced upon my flesh
The marks your nails left as they raked across my body, dug into my back
The haunting reminder that none of it was ever real
Not really

There is nothing more you can take from me
You've already bled me dry
An answer I cannot give you
For I have left not even that to offer
All that remains is a burnt-out ghost of what was
A broken and bloodied and fading apparition of something that I know will never haunt you

All I ever needed
Was all that never needed me.
My salvation turned out to be the death of me;
My hope my execution.