When Death Meets You at Your Door

When death meets you
at your door,
do not pretend
You did not hear
the knock.

It has a sound
older than language,
softer than thunder,
and more honest
than the mouths
that promised forever
without knowing
What forever costs.

Do not run.

Stand there
with your robe tied,
your spirit gathered,
your breath steady
inside the temple
of your chest.

Ask death
what it came to teach.

Was it the fragility
of time?

The audacity
of love?

The sacred arithmetic
of all the moments
we thought
Could we spend carelessly?

Death does not always arrive
to take the body.

Sometimes it comes
to remove the illusion.

The stale attachment.
The antiquated grief.
The rancor
You kept polishing
like an heirloom.

Sometimes death
stands at the threshold
and says,

Beloved,
this version of you
cannot enter
where your soul
is going.

And there,
in the quiet severity
of that knowing,
something luminous
begins to rise.

Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Not begging the world
to understand.

But with cogency.

With discernment.

With the strange vitality
of a woman
who has learned
that endings
are not always punishments.

Some are permissions.

Some are portals.

Some are the final mercy
of what could no longer
pretend to be alive.

So when death meets you
at your door,
open it with grace.

Let it take
What has already
stopped breathing.

Let it gather
the false stories,
the despondent names,
the rooms
where your spirit
had grown too small.

Then bless the ashes.

Wash your hands.

Light the candle.

And step forward
with your crown intact,
Your heart is still warm,
Your body is still holy,
and your soul
no longer afraid
of transformation.

Because death,
when met with truth,
does not only end.

Sometimes
It restores.

Sometimes
It clears the room.

Sometimes
It leaves you standing
in the doorway
of your own becoming,

alive,
regal,
unburdened,
and finally ready
to live–

Published by Sherley Delia