Bucket List

she stood on an empty bucket with a tight noose around her neck when doubts crept in through a hole in the bottom of the rusty vat naked she was twisted torn with defeat tattooed into a punctured heart vacant echoes of darkness played a symphony in search a broken record on desiccated skin she had painted all regrets in bright orange crayons scratched it over with charcoal and waited for final accords of freedom a mistuned guitar offered Nirvana but an accordion drew out suspense screechy fiddles bowed to the drum beat calling for tranquil surrender slit wrists oozed sorrowed blood on transition to redemption and closure the kitchen smelled of gas as her match stick legs gathered last strength she had not eaten for weeks and trusted liquor had been her only companion if only she could overcome apathy and inhibition to pitch up her courage but her arteries refused to relinquish blood for fatigue to settle for broke the vessel stood rock solid on shaky grounds of a tiled kitchen floor and she wondered whether the rope was a rubbery pendulum waiting to snap and therefore she hesitated at the threshold between paradise and hell well she pondered I’ve got that one out of the system I might as well live off my list now I know how it feels like to hand over the conductor’s baton if my inner audience hesitates to cast the final curtain the show must go on when she refrained from muting an orchestra she faded for silence to grow she almost tripped the fuse but severed the cord and rewired her feelings to align with the desperate reason that life on the edge was better than death 13th November 2020