'Pathos'

I took three lozenges from the foil-lined packet and popped them in
I felt death dissolving, dispersing its properties into the walls of my mouth
Death calming the crow perched within my throat
Nothing I could think of
Save for the crow falling into sleep
Its beak feet twitching in reluctant surrender
Pecking scratching ceasing for the while

A strange stillness took me
As I found myself staring into the darkness
Playing into a room filled with a great number of friends and acquaintances
Who were all shrouded in the same anonymity, black facelessness

It was not for escape or want of change that I sang
My voice frail in temporal respite
It was for you that I travelled again
I revisited, remembered
The things that were and the things which could have been
A packet of death on the soft guitar case at my feet
You, thousands of miles away

( _")