I stand alone before the open grave

Questions burgeoning–why should I grieve?

Your empty shell has long let free your ghost

Rejoin the molecules of that make the world

Where did you go? And will you yet return?

Have I a prayer of seeing you again?

 

I fling a fist of dirt below again

Upon the box ensconced inside the grave

But when I leave, I know I won’t return

This field of stone is not a place to grieve

My fate is to remain in this cold world

Haunted by your ever-present ghost

 

But honestly? I don’t believe in ghosts.

I guess I should aver it once again

“All that’s real and true is of this world,”

I intone, my voice sober, firm, and grave.

“If you feel loss, it’s for yourself you grieve.”

Grief only takes, gives nothing in return.

 

Shake it off and to your life return

Go through the motions, corporeal ghost!

No one cares to spectate while you grieve

Or hear your wailing, see you cry again

They wonder, is her depression now so grave

That she cannot enjoy that of this world?

 

But it’s overrated, isn’t it? This world?

You work, you sleep, to work you must return

Laboring from cradle until grave

Reenact the scene, you vengeful ghost

The human rituals, repeat, again

What life is this, the loss of which you grieve?

 

But still it lingers, self-indulgent grief.

The truth about this vale of tears, the world

Is sin absolved, then acted out again.

I venture forth with hope, only to return

To haunt the wounds, invisible as ghosts.

What cannot die can never have a grave.

 

I’m of this world but wish not to return.

Forgive again when I can finally ghost.

I’m tired of grief. My peace is in the grave.