Threnody

This poem, "Threnody", is a redux of a poem I wrote around five years ago for an AP English project. I have transformed the poem to make it more general and at the same time more impactful. (There was also some remaining "themes" I shoehorned into the project based on the themes we were studying - that is, transcendentalism.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As breath exits my body,
I hang gently from the noose.

This night has opened my eyes,
and I shall never sleep again.

I see the gorgeous moon shimmering,
the owl soaring off into the distance over the frigid forest,
and the trees solemnly swaying in the slight breeze.

My spirit begins to separate from flesh,

and I am beckoned;

I know that my time swiftly approaches,
but I want a chance to truly say goodbye to the world.

I slowly drift up,
and now I take flight;
The night is my only companion as I grace its silver-coated skies,
and I can never return home.

The body, once house of the spirit, now holds no one,
and no one flees across the sky, beyond the moon,
then onto heaven.

The spirit is a curious thing: it is lonely,

lacking a physical existence;
I know that there is a light that never goes out, despite my end,
and a part of me still exists.

Death involves this slight tingle in the back of my mind,
that says I am dead; that the pain of losing life is gone,

Yet this separation from those I love is melancholy.

Heaven knows I am miserable now,
friendless and alone,
never once knowing what true love ever felt like,
only the cold, comforting grip of hatred.

Death does not end love,
but it makes existence excruciatingly bitter,
and now I see that this powerful emotion inside is not hatred nor is it even anger,

Somehow it is love I thought I never had. 

It never occurred to me

that perhaps I would miss being alive,

that this was all a mistake.

Now my spirit surpasses the clouds,
and the pathetic spirit looks over the houses,
much as the wise sentinel guards his domain.

Without thinking, I soar down to the ground,

hoping that I will find something beautiful:
instead I am reminded of my irreversible mistake;
Regret’s power slows my descent,
preventing me from returning to the world I had left behind.

I am now gone forever from anyone I ever loved,

I am invisible to them as if I never mattered,                                 

and there is the knowledge that the powerful love threatens to overwhelm me,

A wrenching feeling reminds me that I am alone;
No matter how much I wish these gaps would fill,
they remain forever open,
and now I am gone.