In the dark woods alongside a stream, I try to hide. Then I wonder why I’m tripping over all the times I’ve lied to the other wolves about the cancer inside stealing my sleep. I open my eyes wide and swallow down deep the cold night air as I come undone and surrender to my tears, the tears that are tearing me up inside. I fall on my knees and on my pride as I decide to tell them the truth. But I don’t need to be the hero tonight for the pack, so I decide to keep it a secret. However, night after night it keeps haunting me. Finally I decide that we all want love and honor. I need the pack’s love now, due to the cancer devouring me.
I start running, then I wonder why I’m still running when there is no escaping my fate. Nobody wants to pay the asking price (which is my life) but I don’t think I want to be alone tonight when it could be my last night. Soon Andra appears by my side “You don’t need tears for alibis( don’t need to see my streaming tears) to know that I don’t want to die,” I say to Andra, “and yet you’re still by my side when all the things I’ve done have left you bleeding on a field somewhere.” Andra shakes her head slowly. then begs, “ I am asking, please, but I can see in your eyes that you aren’t walking home and telling them the secrets that you keep.” Andra looks in my eyes and says, “ I don’t need to be a hero tonight, so I will stay here with you.”
I shook my head slowly, taking a slow breath, and say to Andra, “I don’t think I can drive it home tonight, my body that is.” As I finish talking I feel a ripple of pain throughout my body that causes me to quietly whimper. Andra looks down at me with slight tears and says, “Love must be blind if the others who care for you will not even see the pain.” Andra then sighs, “I am staying by your side until you make it home.” I look at Andra’s transparent silhouette and say, “Is that why you’re still standing by this sinner’s side?” Andra shook her head slowly. “It’s true what they say, you longed to die out here.” She moved her paw in a circle to emphasize that she meant the common battlefield.
A slight smirk appears on my muzzle as I whisper, “No spoon of sugar could make it sweet, except if there would be no more wars after this.” Andra looked down, and realized that I wasn’t breathing and my eyes clouded, signaling my end. Andra rolled my dead-weighted body onto her spine and carried me home as a proud warrior, not speaking a word as tears rolled down her face. Andra looked back at my still body and whispered, “Come undone, surrender stronger to your forever sleep, and do not worry about us.” ( song: Come Undone by FFH)