"Nine Times to Die" Written By Milena Grubor

The first came swift on spectral wing,

A razor whispered reckoning.

The second lumbered cold and slow,

A dirge dragged deep in undertow.

A crushing grief an unseen hand,

Pressed coffin close like sinking sand.

A love once lit in scarlet flame,

Now lay in dust, no pulse, no name.

I sought to still the inward storm,

To freeze the ache deny its form.

But sorrow carved where darkness fed,

No balm could soothe the inward dead.

Then venom's voice in serpents tongue,

Hummed hollow hymns the darkness sung.

Yet death unholy bleak malign,

Refused me passage past its line.

It crooned in lullabies of ash,

Soft as a mourners velvet lash.

Thou wanderer of weeping skies,

Come drown within my ebon eyes.

But trembling still I sensed beneath,

The grief curled in its phantom teeth.

For death bears weight past mortal ken,

A chain that drags through hearts of men.

Still there it waits with frost kissed grace,

A lantern dimmed in empty space.

A promise murmured old as sin,

A hollow doorway yawning in.

I tread the brink eternally,

Not living whole nor wholly free.

For death in corners pale and sly,

Has watched my footsteps as I cry.

Yet nine times fated nine denied,

I rose where once the spirit died.

And still the darkness kneels by me,

For sorrow walks where I must be.