In Memoriam

came to me in a dream. Wronged woman with no regrets?

What will they find when they dig my corpse out from the grave?
White moonstone, dark twilight.
My flesh, rotting.
Holes for eyes.
Worms that take solace in the cavity that once housed my tongue.
My arms, perhaps, placed at an odd angle, over my torso.
And what of my heart?

I imagine that by then it will be blacker than the soil that was my home for the years past.
Will they be able to understand what I tried to do with it? What it did with me?
Will they see how it once pulsed only for you?
Will they shake their heads sanctimoniously, simply disregarding me as just another cautionary tale?

And what then?

Will they realize that I was simply human?
That I yearned for the love that poets write about, the love that singers sing about, the love that keeps the artist painting on and on and on until they die.
My mother used to say that I was a sweet girl, prone to bouts of cynicism.
Until I met you.
If you saw me in this state, my skin one with the soil, my bones melded to the grounds you banished me to, my soul growing the lilac flowers out of my body, snaking out, what would you say?


The same flowers you used to sweep into my hair, like second nature.
The same soil we had picnics on, and you used to say
you and I and the stars?
Your web of lies, like vine, twirling around my body, caging me into this eternal tomb.
When they see me, at my most vulnerable, will they understand? Will they understand that even after it all, I don't have it in my wretched soul to feel any regret?