Will I become like the old man from next door?
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Obsessed with the fear of losing his mind,
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he soon couldn't take care of himself anymore.
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He had no friends or relatives to look after him,
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only once a week some male nurse dropped in.
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He was found in this bed, dehydrated ...-
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unconscious, as he was, they brought him to a different place.
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"We have never heard of him since ..."
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He lived alone in his house for most of his life,
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and I wouldn't be surprised,
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if he had died the same day they put him in a room
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with people he'd never seen before.
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He had a wild garden behind his house ...-
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so beautiful and dark.
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Woodpeckers and squirrels lived there,
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and hedgehogs, mice and martens.
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Hazelnut-trees and wild strawberries grew,
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and cherries, apples and pears, and currents of red and black ...-
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all hidden in this private place.
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In the safety of the shadows the fragile fern slept,
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along the winding paths the wild-flowers wept,
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snowdrops nodded their little heads in spring,
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forget-me-nots, and all kind of things,
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of which I do not know the names ...
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And, of course, there was ivy everywhere.
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It happened the same week they took him away
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workers hacked down all the trees in the garden ...-
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hired by the envious people outside ... who had always been terrified
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by the beauty that enchanted this place,
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and the darkness it was breathing.
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Yet, none of them could keep the dead birds from singing ...
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-----------------
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The Skeletal Garden
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Sopor Aeternus |