The Requiem Of My Life

By Shristi Singh

"Is this the end?" I whispered, 

As I lay upon the precipice of existence, 

the world around me burnt 

with the flames of forgotten dreams 

 Untold stories.

 Yet, amidst the inferno,

 there was no ash, no remnants of a life well-lived, 

for I had failed to seize the moments 

They slipped through my trembling fingers like grains of sand.

The Grim Reaper stood before me, 

shrouded in the cloak of inevitability, 

his scythe gleaming in the dim light of fading consciousness.

"Tell me," I pleaded with hollow eyes,

"Is this all there is to existence?

 "You have come to the end of your journey," he intoned, his voice a whisper of impending finality.

But as I gazed into the hollow sockets of his skull,

 I saw not the harbinger of death, 

but the embodiment of regret, 

a reflection of the life I had squandered in pursuit of hollow pursuits and empty promises.

"Take me not into the darkness," I pleaded, 

my heart heavy with the weight of missed opportunities 

Unfulfilled potential.

But, The Reaper reached out his skeletal hand to claim my soul,

 I felt a pang of sorrow, 

not for the end that awaited me, 

but for the life that had slipped through my grasp like water through clenched fists.

The flames of regret licking at my heels,

As I faced the bitter truth that in death's embrace,

For in the final moments of my existence, 

I realized that true death was not the cessation of breath, 

but the absence of a life well-lived,

 a legacy of memories left unmade and dreams left unfulfilled.

My voice, a mere echo in the cavernous void of eternity. 

"When I came to die, 

I discovered that I had not lived."

By Shristi Singh