My sentence does not end here;

it goes on.  I feared I couldn’t do this;

I was wrong.  I thought I’d been extinguished;

yet a white-hot ember burns.  I felt my radiance fading;

but your love, my oxygen, revives me, and the flame of hope returns;

 

another second, one more minute, one more hour;

even one more day?   My story is not over, this is all I know;

the power of my heart may yet sustain this glow.  The spiral spins;

the sun begins to rise, its soft light lifts me from my 3a.m. despair; 

 

my breath is in its care.  The sentence is reduced to life, not death;

my story will continue, my beloved friend, for this is not the end;