Where do we go, really?

They say life is short,

Death comes swiftly, then we move on.

They say we live, we die, and heaven waits—

But where is that, really?

Where is “gone”?

____

No one has told me in a way I understand.

The body breaks, blood spills,

Strong hands turn to dust.

But the voices, the eyes, the light behind them—

Where do they go?

_____

What happens to the voices—

Strong yesterday, fading today?

The eyes—once full of light,

Now blank, lifeless?

_____

We say heaven,

We say hell,

We say they rest.

But do they?

Where are they, really?

____

If we don’t know where our loved ones are—

The ones who die every day—

Then what do we know?

____

They say some souls deserve nothing but fire.

But how can I accept this,

When even the lost,

Even the wandering,

Are told there’s no way back?

Is grace not larger than this?

___

Grace—grace should be bigger,

It has to be bigger than this.

____

I want to believe they’re not gone,

Not just floating into nothingness,

The same nothingness and unawareness I dwelled in before i was born.

And surely not suffering for things they never understood.

___

I want to hold onto the idea

That we’re not so fragile,

That all this—

This life, this confusion,

This endless loop of pain—

Isn’t just to lead us to oblivion.

_____

Where do they go?

The ones I love, the ones who died—

Where did they go?

I can’t stand to think they’re nowhere.

Or worse, that they are in turmoil beyond our world.

___

And if this life,

This cycle of disease, decay, and death

Is the only thing promised to us—

Then why?

Why create something so beautiful

Only to watch it fade?

_____