Past Lives - A Poem

I cannot run fast enough

I can feel my feet thundering on the hard earth

My legs are moving, so fast, so fast

Beads of sweat peel down my face

I feel fear, deep fear as I die.

He is lying in a cross shape,

They celebrate around him,

Candles are lit in a circle around him

Why do they want him gone?

Why has this happened?

He succumbs to the inevitable.

Too many times I am bound like this.

Out in the open.

Wrapped like this. Tight rope,

Around my torso and my arms to my sides.

I am dragged and suffocated, while still standing.

Who am I? Why am I captured in this way?

This time it is chains.

What did I do?

There is a tightness, a throbbing in my head,

Matching and meeting the pressure in my chest.

I try to escape but there is only death.

I feel pain on the whole of my right side

Pain on my face, and my stomach

I feel deep sadness,

Like she wished she'd helped herself, before this end.

My daughter was my sunshine,

A braver girl than me.

My son, a braver boy than me.

He brought me back to life, but I died with her anyway.

Who was she? Why did I know her death?

I believe but

there is just too much noise

To keep hearing.

To keep listening for these old stories.