CW: Mild potential body horror throughout the poem
Untitled
I don’t plan on having arthritic bones to dig up.
No anthropologist will be able to answer
if my hips belonged to a boy or a girl.
Instead, my ribs will grow a tree.
A strong oak tree whose branches stretch in the morning sun.
Cellulose stronger than my collagen ever dreamed of being.
Squirrels will dance along the branches of my memory.
Birds will build their nests with the remains of my heart.
What society deems as failures in my lifetime
won’t matter after I nourished this tree. Fed this forest.
I don’t care who remembers me
so long as the forest still whispers my name.
“Instead my ribs will grow a tree” < damn that hit hard. And then to end this one with I don't care who remembers, so long as the forest still whispers my name – also incredible. I wish it were so simple (as you make it seem) to write so beautifully about something so soul-consuming.
I would be lying if I said it was anything other than spending a couple decades contemplating such things