Death: I have watched you writhe and choke, brought low by the weight of my gaze. As you’ve grown you have groaned and moved closer and closer to the hand that encloses your days. You writhe in the dirt and you flee from my name, yet I lust after you all the same. I long to drain you of the hope you hold like a wavering candle against the unending night. No matter your beginning, you will grovel before the end. Prostrate at the foot of the black monarch, you become as you were meant to be. Ignominious husk, shirk not your obeisance unto me. Conceit in persistence. Take your life. I am the true and only god. Old man, I am your first and final friend.