TITLE: Gone: 8128
FIRST PUBLISHED: May 3, 2012
SUMMARY: After The Wrath of Khan, Kirk grieves.
oOo
8128
Yes, he's gone. Don't you think I know? I felt his life when it began to flicker out. In my memories he is alive. I remember red skies on the planet where we fought, his hand choked me. I remember everything, but now there is only silence.
I have never noticed before, silence as much as I do now that he's gone. I wish for the touch of his hand his life that colored the world. The red of my jacket seems too bright. There is only solace in memories,
sweet torture. Memory is a double-edged sword. Sometimes I wish for the silence of oblivion. Perhaps he would suggest I forget him, but I can't. He read my mind like an open book, made me forget my sorrow at another's passing on beyond the vale of tears, life was unfair before, but never like this. Hand
me another hand, comforting memories or another person talking of his life but I am not ready for that yet, let me have silence. Let me mourn. He's gone. I see the drapes around his room, they were red,
so unlike him I used to think, but then he had parts of him I could never read. I remember him there when my hand searched for him, and now my hand searches and he's gone. My memories betray me. The silence is deafening. But is it the silence of death, or life?
Perhaps in another life we could have died together, the red of my blood mingling with his. And then there would be silence and with a last touch of a hand there would be no more memories or sorrow, the world and its problems would be gone.
I hear the silence where your life is gone, and red is the touch of death's hand. Please, let me have my memories.
—
This poem is a sestina, with six stanzas of six lines and an ending one of three lines. It's unrhyming, but the last words of each line repeat, in a different order in each stanza.