(gravedigger)

sometimes i feel like a gravedigger,
digging my own grave in preparation for the day
when i finally get to rest.
every day another shovelful of dirt,
every achievement an acquiescence to the idea
that there are minimum requirements for death.

before i can lay down, i have to dig my own grave.
i’m tired of digging, but it isn’t deep enough,
isn’t wide enough, the edges aren’t sharp enough
and the terrible vicious irony of it is
that i only tire because i’m digging.
if i could just lay my shovel down,
i wouldn’t need a grave at all.

fracture

sometimes i feel- impermanent. i am shifting and changing constantly, like pieces of fabric floating on a sea of fear, and i can’t stitch them into a cohesive person anymore. the sea swallows me whole but the next minute i can’t remember what it was like to drown.

i wrote a letter yesterday and it was so warm and kind and forgiving, but today i don’t remember what that felt like. i’m falling apart, tearing at the seams, my mind scattering into stardust. every part of me is temporary.

i don’t think i will ever be whole again, sometimes. i worry that what i’m writing is a catalogue of my own destruction; will someone look back at this someday and say here is where it started, here is where it begins to fracture?