Footnote (Poetry)

The last thoughts that he had are written here —
the ink long-dried and fading from the page,
Love’s frailty showing, dimming year by year,
as memory wears thin, submits to age.

The passions once so fiercely penned in joy,
still warm the blotted lines — old flames grown faint
but lingering — mere time could not destroy
such loves as those unleashed without restraint.

Emotion gushed with ink, mixed dark and deep —
immortalizing all he loved, as long
as stain endures, his swirls of pigment keep
some trace of colour — prove their dye is strong.

Forgive the failing man his purple prose —
his vision holds more truth than critics think.
Near death, the writer’s dedication shows —
it was his blood, those lines of fading ink.