Beautifully Doomed

We live our lives on delicate wings, fragile as a painted butterfly. A shooting star, promised not to last, Shining short across a darkened sky. Our strength is in delicate nature, We burn fast and we burn bright, An intense fire, never meant to last, Beautifully doomed and into the void We’re a feather on a breeze, A word in the darkness, A teardrop in a storm, lost in time. We shine bright, we fall hard but when we fly we soar. And when we love, we fill an eternity. All our dreams and actions are blown away like footprints in a gentle snow, Yet in our fiercest moments, we leave footprints in the stone. But when the flames of youth have burned, they leave a charred darkness in their place. The colours of the seasons change and let their palates paint our face. Time is a teacher, a healer, A killer, a stealer, Leaving just memories to keep us warm, Fleeting moments among the mundane, Until all memory is gone. Perfect in our imperfections we stand against the storm, But the rain will fall like it’s always done, The wisdom of an age trickles steadily away, lost unto us all. And the river flows on, relentless, Engulfing and directing our course, We feel the ripples of those we love, Whose lives are pressed against ours. I have a lifetime of things to share with you in the moments that between us remain, But trying to hold you in this erratic dance is like trying to catch the wind that whispers your name. So I sit and stare through opaque memories which colour the light winter sends, And I ponder these streets, colder now, echoing footfalls of fallen friends. Slaves to the free moving hands of time which bind our hands in the end. And even those sterling hands must rust, The cracked glass, still glitters among friends.