THe Grave Digger
in the early morning hours of mid-fall,
my consciousness was scraped to life by the bleeding sun through my bare windows.
and as i peeled my eyes from sleep to the glimmer of dew
on the grass outside, i saw you- gentle, pensive,
twirling the morning air, through your breath, synchronized
with that of the flowers and the birds. you looked
as you did the first time, leaving me to remember you
tangled in the white sheets- soft, vulnerable.
but i am aware now that things must always change.
i watched you from afar then. grasping the rusted shovel- still, listening
for the pattern of my breath. you waited for my exhale to
heave your shovel into the flesh of the earth, leaking
a thick, dark red spill into the bed of the flowers and pouring dew
from its eyes. another blow
left me void of breath- another, another.
my body crumbled with the soil as you tossed me six feet deep.
only feet apart, dipping chests, breathing the same light,
yet miles from who we could have been.
why must things always change?
you didn’t have to.
you didn’t have to dig that final grave.
you didn’t have to allow them to
crown you with that morbid title:
gravedigger.
but there you are,
looking down at my mutilated spirit,
weak from the wrath of your tools and i am here,
ready to harbor roots in my soul to grow flowers for you
as a reminder that never again
will you strip me of my immortality.