The Long Dead Walking

The Long Dead Walking

Some people walk this earth long dead,

their eyes still open, their hearts shut tight.

They breathe, they speak, they nod their heads,

yet nothing stirs behind their sight.

They smile on cue, they shake your hand,

repeat the lines they learned to say.

Their laughter sounds like borrowed land,

a hollow echo left to play.

They carry wounds that never healed,

stacked deep beneath the skin they wear.

Time passed them by, their fate was sealed,

the moment hope learned not to care.

Love knocked once, then walked away,

tired of waiting to be let in.

What stayed behind was cold and grey,

a quiet rot beneath the skin.

They do not rage, they do not weep,

they drift through days like moving ash.

Their promises are buried deep,

their memories reduced to trash.

If you look close you see the truth,

the soul slipped out without a sound.

What’s left is habit, not their youth,

a body pacing burial ground.

Pray not for those who breathe yet died,

their ghosts are heavier than stone.

They walk beside us, side by side,

alive in flesh, in spirit gone.