Next Time, Bury Me With You

I want to drag the weight of my body to the cemetery.
Past the highways.
Past the fast food restaurants.
Past people who don't know any better and who don't see me anyways.

I want to feel ashphalt ripping through the fabric of my clothes.
Ripping through to my skin.
Leaving a trail of tiny blood marks behind me.

I want to reach your headstone.
Your grave.
The place where your body lies.
I will rise my bruised and battered body to my knees.
And I will dig.

I will take my bare hands, mangled from my journey,
And I will begin to claw.
I will rip through the carefully manicured grass until I feel dirt.
And I will not stop clawing

Until my fingernails have detached from my flesh
And leave nothing but dirt-ridden sores.
Until I reach the wooden box that holds your corpse,
The one that was chosen because it was warmer than cold metal.

Though bruised and bloody and exhausted,
I will open that box, that casket, that tomb
And I will crawl in with you,
Next to your rotted, decaying body
Trapped in a meaningless uniform
With meaningless medals,
Marking you as a stranger.

I will lie next to your body
And I will cradle your flesh,
Staring into the night sky,
Finally able to rest.