Resting Place

I wish you a grave.

It would hurt less to pretend you’re not still out there,

walking amongst these lives as if you did not tread through mine.

I wish myself a grave too.

A fragmented soul you’ve made of me,

like shattered glass among the pavement,

countless iterations of myself reflected in the disarray.

Each time, I’ve been born anew.

Each time, in the husk of a dead man.

If I could shed off your touch,

our laughs,

my heart.

I’d lay it down gently in the riverbed and wonder if it’d

make the way back to you,

just as I had in the springtime.

After the years and the weather erode your coffin out from the soil,

twisting, brushing past the cattails, bruised and tattered,

my flesh will come to rest, caught on your ivory fingers.

Nestled sweetly along the silt and the sediment,

crawdads and earthworms will dance between our remains while

we are none the wiser,

perhaps for the better.