Flesh melting off bones Lights flicker and burst Body shutting down No one there to know

Plants withering Dead eyes stare on No more music No more souls to hear it

Lifeless bodies Hearts barely beating Everything falling apart What’s the point anymore

Final heart beat Dirt absorbs your mistakes No more breathing Just the silence of decay

When do We start dying? After birth ? Or once you stop growing? Or When we stop learning? Or When we start neglecting our bodies?

Think we start dying one our mind our minds souls stop getting tended to Think we start dying when our Bodies stop gaining and start losing muscles growing weaker I think we decay a little day by day But what dol know l'm just decay

I have handed you my heart of sheer porcelain, wrapped in newspaper printed with the hymns of my love for you. You took it gently.

I think that was the worst part.

You peeled back the worries, the blatant devotion pulsing nervously, and looked. Looked.

You wrapped it back in the paper, tape pressed ever so gingerly back into place, and handed it to me with a pitiful smile.

You may as well have handed me dust.

But, even dust, touched by your hand, even a smile sewn of pity, is better than the absence of you at all. So I have handed you my heart, a sheer porcelain gift, and you handed it back.

And I am shards, And I am tears, And I am everything you do not need.

I know it when all of a sudden your face turns as creased and pale as ash.

I know it when blood spirts from your abdomen.

I know when you crumple and you lay limp.

I know when you scream And scream And scream And at some point I wonder if I will ever get the sound out of my mind

It won’t.

So when I reach you When I fall to the ground, With tears already blurring my vision I already know I KNOW

I can’t save you

Not with all the magic in the world.

That doesn’t stop me from trying though.

And as the magic courses through me it burns I revel in it hoping for any relief from the hole already cracking through me

The grass around you shimmers and grows flowers of all colors poke out of the ground in a ring around your body a circle of life surrounding the dead

I push harder The sun burns the birds are screeching the wind howls

I scream And shriek

COME BACK PLEASE COME BACK

But you you stay still

Around you is beauty of all kinds imaginable but you won’t see it

ever again

I still visit you

The magic in the ground not allowing you to rot to decay

The world around you is frozen beautiful perfect

like you

you look peaceful

It’s been years now I’ve never left your side It’s beautiful here

I found a dog skull in the woods

It was the skull of a dog not some coyote or wolf or fox— this i’m certain of.

It had man’s touch pressed into it’s shortened snout and loyalty smoothed into it’s rounder shape

I wondered about the dog it was before it was just a skull in the woods before teeth marks made their jagged tattoos in the crest of eye sockets

I stared at it’s moss-covered form centered in a clearing almost slightly on its side

and I thanked the forest for giving it a funeral and the moss for making it feel not so alone and the pine needles for giving it a soft bed and the birds for singing to it day after day

and I thanked the sun for kissing the bone

for no dog dead or alive

should feel cold.

So I lifted him from the ground gentle

and I promised the forest I’d take good care of him

and I brought him home and picked the vines off and shooed the bugs away and took great care to scrub the dirt soft and slow

‘You’ve done a great job,’ I tell the vines and bugs and dirt ‘But I’ve got him now. You’ve done a great job, but it’s my turn to watch him now.’

And I promised to love him; a pinky swear to the sun a gentle kiss from the vines and bugs and dirt to continue that sacred vow to care for him sweet and soft until it’s the forest’s turn again.

You smile at the deer eating grass By the underpass

You smile at the dead ones On the highway too

Beauty does not stop at death to you

Hyphea spread, mushrooms fruit, on a body used to life and pursuit.

The earth enriched so tree spouts shoot

Dark and fresh for native roots

Death must come for life anew

P.S. + E.M.

I do not recognize myself I think I’ve cried away The face I used to have

——

That’s all I have the energy for right now. I’m sorry. I’m genuinely going through the most horribly painful thing I’ve ever had to deal with right now. I don’t know if I will continue to write. Writing is an escape so I want to but everything hurts so much. I’m sorry again

They expected some sort of excitement When they told me everything looked fine The monitor beeps with my vitals In a consistent up-and-down line

But I silently wish they had found something there Not to sound like a hypochondriac But the pain in my chest had been so severe I was sure I was having a heart attack

But the tests all came back clear of problems The blood they’d drawn had been for naught No ulcers or cysts on my organs They look perfect, not even a spot

My heart rate is perfectly normal Despite how I’m feeling it race The doctor discharges me and I just hide So they can’t see the tears on my face

I guess I’m glad that I’m not dying But that diagnosis brings no relief For I know if my _body _is healthy The problem must simply be me __

In the hollows of a heart once flush and bright, Lies a withered husk, devoid of light. Darkness, Where a fierce heart once beat, Betrayal’s bitter frost marksa fatal defeat.

Pulse slowed to a murmur, the beats now fray, Each thump a reminder of love's decay. Trust, like autumn leaves, crumbles to dust, Promises once whispered, now lost to rust.

The heart, a relic of a flame snuffed out, Shrinks into the shadows, wrapped in its doubt. With every echo of its former cries, A piece falls away, and slowly dies.

Betrayed and abandoned, left to erode, A tale of a heart on its final road.

Some see it as a curse that our world is so elusive, Beyond our mortal grasp, where the horrors dwell delusive. Foolish mortals stumble in ignorances embrace, Wandering through gardens like a lonesome ghost that hates.

The foolish like to thrive in their dim witted delight. Yet the wise, the mad, live out in understandings blight. Assembling the puzzles, eyes bathed in ash and gloom, Monsters watch and whisper to them from the shadows tomb.

Ignorance is solace in the dread of not knowing we thrive. Now the truths revealed, sometimes we wish we’d not survived. Sanity departs the deeper we dive in the pond of lore. Genius’s pockets fill with rocks, they die with nevermore.

Better to remain in life with blissful unawareness, Than learn the truth and be exposed to monsters in your bareness. Once the void is stared at long enough, somethings bound to see, And when they know you know, there is no way to set you free.