The Truth

On admitting to yourself the truth. Inspired a bit by Blanche's lines about death in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire."

The white woods utter words
teeming with tangible truths,
ones we wish weren’t so.

They say sometimes the dying
cling onto us pleading,
“Don’t let me go.”

And in our minds and our replies, 
we promise we will hold on,
but deep in our hearts,
weighed down by the
truths of reality,
we let
go.

We let them slip through our fingers
We let them fall to their deaths
like water crashing into a chasm
or fog rolling off a mountaintop.
Death is heavier, thicker
than either of those.

Death forces the truth from us.
Wrenches it from our reluctant jaws.
Tears it out of the abysses of our hearts.
Holds it to our throats like the sweet blade of a knife.
Forces us to admit:
We let go. We let go. We let go.