Mourning Songs
Why am I always mourning?
Always pouring salt over wounds
and uncovering the dead to see
if they could be breathing once again?
Why am I never growing?
Never turning soil over lovingly
and planting seeds to birth new beauty?
I inhale the slightest inkling of fresh air
and run off to climb back into coffins
and keep climbing into coffins
and then finding other coffins to climb in
until I am begging to be buried
with all of the dead and their insufferable corpses
that have rotted to decomposition and rot.
Why does this grief always live here?
Why am I offering it a home inside of bones
that are no longer held together with well-oiled joints and working cartilage?
I see all these epitaphs
with so many names.
I see all these epitaphs
without my own name
next to open graves,
selfishly holding no room for me.
I see all these epitaphs
not destined for me
and all my bitten-up mouth can manage
is to complain.