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.