In a language of lament and mourning—poetry bores holes through us,
verses like ’stranded among the living/called back to the heavens/
since you were too ethereal for a world/not prepared to receive you/
if I jumped in the casket as well/no one would’ve noticed’
can’t be held in our lungs indefinitely. The heart is a sieve, giving way
to grief, and sorrow, to pour through—coating the body in a
sickly languid coating of shadow that sticks to the skin, no
amount of washing would get it to unstick. You turn to nostalgia
to try and acid-wash the tarry substance away, bits and pieces
flake off, leaving much of it whole, unlike yourself.
You resign to the sun—you trust it’ll cure you one way or another,
leaving you with either tender growth from roots that dug deeper,
or a desiccated thing that no amount of watering will revive,
both the options are acceptable to you, you become
an indifferent onlooker to your own life.
You sift through the last of the memories, wondering if remembering
is grieving, and if you forget—would you be free of the bereavement?
You take an assortment of memories, tidy them, and arrange them,
you carry them to the grave, you don’t say anything but
leave the memories there and wait.
