Buried
By: Kathleen Buchholz
Originally Published: 1/10/20
you did not make it quick.
There was no knife to scrape my bones,
—no knife to puncture my flesh,
It was bruises, it was blue, it was black,
It was ugly.
My wounds sank deep, pinning me in my plot
They twisted my insides, turned my stomach to stone.
jagged rock jutting from flesh,
Not marble—nor onyx, but coarse, unsightly grey.
The crudeness, the cruelty of my body hidden.
For I am murdered!—yet you live.
you and your brothers like you—the blameless, the named
Who trespass through our lakes
while we lay nameless in our graves.
Though not the monsters, we the more unsightly.
I, forgotten, decayed, left behind.
But—perhaps the sun will warm my bones, the worms might have their fill,
and my dirt may thrive.
My sisters will see my fertile grave
Free of his thorns despite his seeds.
They will shout, that I may be their echo.
Although you are far from my grasp—I name you.
that you will wither and become nothing,
My maggots and worms will eat your flesh,
you will rot in my stead.
you waste—I, for my sisters, remain.
So no—no, you have not won.
Whether it be you, the perpetrator of my murder,
Nor you, the interloper, who defiles my grave and disturbs my dust,
you do not have me–although you tried.
I am earth, I am stone, and my wounds are forever, only mine.
Originally Published: 1/10/20
you did not make it quick.
There was no knife to scrape my bones,
—no knife to puncture my flesh,
It was bruises, it was blue, it was black,
It was ugly.
My wounds sank deep, pinning me in my plot
They twisted my insides, turned my stomach to stone.
jagged rock jutting from flesh,
Not marble—nor onyx, but coarse, unsightly grey.
The crudeness, the cruelty of my body hidden.
For I am murdered!—yet you live.
you and your brothers like you—the blameless, the named
Who trespass through our lakes
while we lay nameless in our graves.
Though not the monsters, we the more unsightly.
I, forgotten, decayed, left behind.
But—perhaps the sun will warm my bones, the worms might have their fill,
and my dirt may thrive.
My sisters will see my fertile grave
Free of his thorns despite his seeds.
They will shout, that I may be their echo.
Although you are far from my grasp—I name you.
that you will wither and become nothing,
My maggots and worms will eat your flesh,
you will rot in my stead.
you waste—I, for my sisters, remain.
So no—no, you have not won.
Whether it be you, the perpetrator of my murder,
Nor you, the interloper, who defiles my grave and disturbs my dust,
you do not have me–although you tried.
I am earth, I am stone, and my wounds are forever, only mine.