I live here at the end of the world,
my cats and I together.
We are within four walls on the edge of reality,
and no one knows what lies beyond this space.
There are people and there is sun.
There is a park across the road
and there is a yard and cars
and other things that show life.
But today it feels fake.
None of it is real, as this place,
this life itself,
is not real at all.

We live, my cats and I, at the end.
As I slowly become more ill,
mentally and physically,
I can see this strange feeling of
dissociation is merely a sign.
This home, when painted with the setting sun
is merely a stopping point.
I am in the in-between,
the resting place
to come to terms with trauma,
memories that are as black as Death,
emotional vibrations from times long past.
And they hurt like rose thorns on my soul.

Nothing exists but this home and these walls,
this yard and this overly bright sun.
The cool breeze and bird's song is about to end,
for we are sitting at the end.
If I venture past the threshold of my home,
everything becomes a blur.
I am wandering into a world that no longer exists.
It is a fabrication of a dream I hardly remember
so I cannot perceive it clearly.
The people and the buildings, the animals,
the plants, and the noise,
it's all a blurry mess of a dream.

At the end of the world, in the Last Place,
all else that exists is a dream.
A memory of what life once was.
Everything is an echo from my mind
and my cats are here with me,
keeping the time pleasant as it passes.
The shadows I see are merely whisperings of Death.
And as my body slowly decays here
and I gather more pain and more mental scars,
I have come to know that this is nearing the end.
I feel it in my bones.
In my body with every breath I take.
Every time my body shuts down
from pain
from fear
from malaise
from bleak memories.
I realize my flesh is fragile.

These ghosts in my mind want me gone.
Those who sewed these memories into my psyche
did so with the intent to release me.
To release me from myself and any sense of self.
Fearsome hands of those I loved
are but specters that continue to bruise me.
The wound is opened once more,
and the scar cannot form.

So I sit at the end of time
in this void that is equally bright and stygian,
and I wait for my body to rot.
For I am dying slowly, as are we all,
but the echoes of trauma work relentlessly.
These bleak memories will kill me
and they will continue to make my world smaller.
This death rattle approaching from a distance,
it reminds me of days long past.
My memory is failing and my vision is a blur.
Everything is as if I am in a dream
and dissociation is my new lover,
for I have always loved those who hurt me.

What is real?
Certainly not me, not this life,
not this world.
This is merely a dream had
at the end of the world
on a mass that is my home
and nothing else exists but time.
And time waits for me to acknowledge the end
while Death sends shadows to watch.
They know I am resilient
and they know I deny the truth,
and they have sent messages in my dreams.
They have viewed me wide-eyed from my hallway
and from the darkest corner of my room.
They have greeted me in dreams
and I've brought them back to say hello.
They are patient because they know.

So I sit here at the end of time,
my cats and I,
and I feel as if I am floating.
For this is not life at all,
but a dream of one.
As I dissociate I am waking to the truth,
of my body on the precipice of life,
but I come back into this vivid dream,
and I deny it a little longer.
Here, at the end of the world,
on this edge of reality where my home sits,
I dream of a waking world of horrors,
and I relive memories of my innocence taken,
and I grow more absent of mind.

Time and days bleed together,
and I no longer retain full memories.
My days are filled with bits and pieces,
clues as to what I've done,
and conversations are blank,
and I only have clarity of the trauma.
My waking days are filled with fragments,
and I do not remember full consciousness.
I cannot live in the moment
for I am still in a time long gone.
My body was destroyed then,
and now I am a shell without a soul.
I died long ago and became a ghost,
and my murderers live on with a future.

I am left here at the end of time,
my cats and I,
and we wait for the dream to close in.