I dragged my weary bones To the whispering edge of the brook Where waters mirrors the sky And earth embraces the dying ones My blood slips into the stream A crimson ribbon unspooling slow My final gift to the currents that Once carried my childhood home The forest closes in around me Standing still in patient silence A heron moves through the reeds Its solemn eye tracing my pulse Insects rest upon my skin Reclaiming an abandoned relic And even the cold water pauses Unsure to soothe or swallow me I see now how the modern world Drained the marrow from my spirit How iron towers and hollow voices Taught me to numb what once was sacred Made me forget the taste of rain And call this emptiness a life I chose I learned to wear my wounds as purpose And named my quiet despair as meaning The brook accepts my offering With neither judgment nor mercy Only the ancient pulse of the wild That takes as gently as it gives If the world remembers me Let it be a fleeting stain A red prayer swallowed by time No grand legacy, no final cry Only a man who found peace In the un-making of himself Leaving one last offering To the brook that watched him fade