Note: This poem was inspired by Laura Elizabeth's story The Dying Atheist. I couldn't quite get the story out of my head, so one day I sat down and wrote this. Thanks Laura Elizabeth for helping to inspire me to write this! Your story was quite moving! If anyone has not read it yet, I highly suggest they do!

No song to fill the moment,

Not a splash of color shown,

No feelings left to feel,

Not a gentle word was sown.

No parade to fill your senses,

No light to fill your eyes,

No joyful dancing present,

She goes about her life like nothing happened. She tries to forget, tries to push it out of her mind.   She sees a mother holding her child in her arms So innocent so precious a gift of life.   She holds her head in her hands waves of depression tides of regret wash over her; drowns her.   she tries to block it out,  treis to forget the life  that was inside of her, but she can't. She thinks, That could have been me. My baby. I've killed my baby what have I done?

The cathedral erupted in cheers and applause. I shouted and clapped along with everyone else, but my heart wasn’t in it.
“It had to be done, Conrad.”
My father had never looked so regal before, standing on the steps to the altar, the purple robe and heavy crown resting on his shoulders and head as if he’d been born to them. Smiling, he lifted one hand as if in benediction, and the cheering doubled in volume. It only began to die down when the trumpeters began to play a triumphant fanfare.

**Two poems, unrelated except for they both have something to do with North, and both were written while I listened to a song called North. 1 is inspired by a character from a novel I'm working on, and 2 is just part of an idea that may one day become a novel, who knows.**