The Burial

All I want sometimes is an unburial. Someone to catch me before my knees buckle and take this anxiety which is always growing. It’s sitting on my chest tonight. Sitting and burying me. Tell me where can I move when everything is done? Tell me how I take away the fun of every bloodied vein and circuit; every open wrist could be slit down the middle and nobody will take notice of the burial. The ever-groveling shovel. No one will offer a mountain of fresh air, and nobody will have hands to give it to you. Tell me how I am detracting and dismantling one piece after another? God, sometimes, most times, I feel like an animal nailed to the board, and scrutiny is a burial. Sometimes, most times, I am a scratch in the wall your fingers run over, and this is a burial. I am a cuticle torn and ravaged and nobody takes notice of the shaking or jittering or bleeding from one lip to the other. If the night overtakes me, consider it a burial. If the day evades me, know that it is a burial. A kind hand carries only expectations in return, and a kind word is a blade if you do not know how to dodge it just right. All words will sting at one point or another, and all of them will bury you. If someone loves you, they’ll tear claws into your skin and never leave you. The elegy is brief. Sometimes they forget your name. No one will attend the burial.