Alt Text:
The Grim Reaper in a field near a tree and everything is in black and white with the wind blowing.
Backstory:
Ah, good ol' Grim Reaper. Since I don't consider Death to have a gender per se even though I grew up viewing Death as a 'he', I'll be using 'they/them' pronouns. Aside note, I'd love to hear an intellectual debate on the difference between how people gender-identify themselves, others, and objects, and how and why these differ among different cultures and backgrounds. I'll add to that how gender-identification has the capacity to change over time. For example, I think it's perfectly plausible that the Grim Reaper or Death can be viewed as a man, woman, non-binary, or even as an 'it' all depending if a person views Death as thinking (subject) or unthinking (object) and as having a gender or being genderless. I also believe that Death can be all of the above depending on how a person experiences Death at different life stages.
I used to be frightfully afraid of death as a child and it took me many years to come to terms with the fact that people die and it's a part of the cycle of life. I would have nightmare after nightmare, particularly ones where I experienced drowning or waking in a coffin because people thought I was dead but I actually wasn't and then suffocating to death. It's for this reason that I always believed the process of sailing the dead on a boat that's lit by a flaming arrow to be the better of funeral rituals, and I liked the poetry of going by simultaneous fire and ice for those who know Robert Frost's famous poem.
Death As Death, the last stanza where the Grim Reaper smirks but doesn't laugh, is a nod to the more empathetic side of the Grim Reaper, (and hence why I think they're called 'Grim' else perhaps they'd be creepily known as the Joyful Reaper). They are typically written as a dark creature and apathetic to pain, but I've learnt over time that they can also be a gift. If you've ever played out in your mind a world where all humans live as immortals then perhaps you'll understand what I mean.
Why do poets deem death-as-death not life that has been?
Full-fulfilled is what it means.
For death-as-death does not destroy dreamt dreams.
Why do scripts see life as living?
For it is a lie,
When there is an end so fearfully nigh.
​
Why do writers feel the scythe is not real?
Hades door demands a rotting corpse,
For I have heard his nagging calls.
​
Why do movies play me as a shadow?
For I am light or dark,
Depending on if you lied or not.
Life-is-life that you might exist.
For being or not being,
Is how it is.
For I am the half,
Apparently dark,
For I am the Grim Reaper,
Who smirks,
But never laughs.