the final settlement

you go to funerals carrying the scent of the end on your clothes only to walk back into the light and start to lie again. you accumulate wealth you betray you build walls of debt as if you can bribe the dirt. what a joke to hoard the gold when the ferryman does not take your credit card. the truth is they will live and you will be gone. the table will be set without your plate. the breakfast will be served while you are turning to cold stone. slowly they will talk less. slowly the memories will fade until your name is just a sound the wind forgot. you treat your skin like it is a permanent cage rather than a rented room. you fight for a patch of ground as if the earth doesn’t already have your name written beneath the grass. you trade your eyes for the reflection in the mirror. you trade your peace for the noise of the crowd. you are so busy counting the years you have left that you forget the fire is already breathing. you spent your holy fire to warm a house of straw. you broke your back to carry a crown made of salt into a rising tide. so laugh at your vanity— you are the one hoarding keys to a room you are leaving forever. the flame does not care how much you were feared or how much you were owed. it is the final settlement. not a negotiation. just the quiet of your absence. you have a god to meet within the silence.