Bitter

“I am bitter”

Was what he wrote on a single sheet of white,

Which he delivered to me almost tenderly.

His last will.

I read it,

And I saw HIM.

There was no remorse in his eyes,

Maybe he had grown past it,

Maybe it had consumed all the bits,

humans use to inflict suffering upon themselves.

But that was all it said.

“I am bitter.”

And in his eyes sat a kind of rueful sadness.

Perhaps for the son he had not raised,

Or the woman who’s warm arms would never again be his welcome.

For all that he was a creature of theater,

Forever performing the role of someone contentedly rouge,

The misogynistic  ne’re do well,

He was as he was,

Unapologetic.

And it made me wonder for she who had written his name on my list.

The one who had met a human being,

And left a mural in her wake,

He was an homage to the word ‘broken’.

So much so, that he just sat there with his last glass of rum,

The first one, he told me, since the day she walked out, 10 years ago.

And it echoes in the silence between us,

The epitaph written in his own hand,

“I am bitter.”

It sounded in my mind’s ear,

As I watched him savor one last sip.

As my stiletto blade pierced his temple,

As the glass fell and shattered on the rough stone floor,

As he bled onto my hand,

As the last breath left his body, sounding more a moan of relief.

As I walked away,

As I cleaned the blood off my blade,

Leaving his corpse for the maid to find.

He was just another name on my list,

Like all the other names,

On all the other lists,

Written in her hand, delivered to me everyday.

I would delivered the notes my victims wrote to her in the morning,

Will this one be special?

Will those words bring tears, or anger?

Will they pierce her cold demeanor?

“I am bitter.”

The last whisper of a man who has long since surrendered,

To loneliness maybe?

Maybe this was why she was bitter too.