What Remains in the End

    a poem by Roger B. Rueda

You sit in your chair, wrapped

in silk that once meant power,

now just fabric over bones

too brittle to carry your name.

Your hands, shaking,

trace the edges of ledgers,

the ink fading like faces

you no longer bother to recall.

The house smells of incense,

burning slow, curling into prayers

you mouth but do not mean.

The medicine stings, metallic,

a last attempt at holding on.

You pray, yes. You pray

for salvation, for a heaven

that will not count the debts,

that will not ask where the bodies lie.

But you do not pray

for the daughter who left,

who will not return to empty hands.

You do not pray

for the friends turned to dust,

for the clerks who worked

your fortune into their hunger.

You speak of wisdom,

as if it has ever touched you.

Of righteousness,

as if you have ever followed it.

Of God’s will,

as if you have ever bowed

to anything but your own.

Your mind is a battlefield

where no one fights back.

Your enemies are ghosts,

but still, you sharpen your teeth.

You call their names in silence,

chew on revenge

as if it were bread.

Even now, with the world dimming,

with death pressing close,

you do not wonder

if kindness might have kept

your hands warm, if love

might have been

the better inheritance.

You do not see

that the maid pours your tea

without looking, that the nurse

checks your pulse

as if counting coins.

You do not see

that when you speak,

the room holds its breath,

not out of reverence,

but to let your voice pass.

You are dying,

but not of sickness.

You are dying of hunger—

not for food, not for breath,

but for more. More time.

More power. More proof

that your name will outlive

the silence you have built.

And when you are gone,

the house will sigh in relief.

The ledgers will curl at the edges,

turning to dust between fingers

that do not care for your sums.

The world will not pause.

The doors will be left open,

the wind slipping through,

taking only what it needs.

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3Gabriel Ceralvo Delariarte and 2 others

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