Down by The River...

I watch as she steps from one stone to the next, counting each one as she does.
Her thin, sickly skinny hands hold up her skirt.
Not a lot, just enough to keep the water from soaking the champagne colored lace that is sewn to the bottom.
And as she does so, her voice sounds a lullaby.
A simple, quiet hum of a tune keeps vibrating behind her lips, and only her lips.
One that fills in the missing sounds nature doesn't supply.
Though she never sings the words anymore.
Always a hum.
I wish she did, the words are such poetry, such magnificentce.
And so delicate, her voice. So clean-cut and never ragged.
It always came so naturally to her.
Oh, how I miss it, her musical tongue. How I miss the proud glow on her face after she'd hit the one note that troubled her the most.
But at least she hasn't lost the will of music. At least it didn't steal that from her, the fever.
The retched sickness that still lingers in her. That still punches her awake every now and then, leaving her all sweaty and screaming, in the middle of a fine night.
She's dying, I know that much, even though I don't accept it.
She'll be forever gone in only a few short months.
So I'll croon along with her. Harmonizing her lone melodies. I will now, tomorrow, and after she has gone.
Because she is mine to never forget.