my-decaying-bones

[my-decaying-bones]

White Lilies.

A soldier hides behind a crumbling wall on the battlefield.

"Shit." He thinks. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

He clutches his hand to his side, trying to suppress the bleeding. He was shot in the abdomen but managed to drag himself to safety. Hoping that someone would find him.

Through gritted teeth, he pulls out a blank sheet of paper, stained crimson from his wound.

Who's he kidding? Even if they came in the next five minutes, he's going to be too far gone already.

A wince as he leans his back against the wall.

A lifetime ago, before the draft, he was a writer. That's how he was able to win over his girlfriend; he wrote her a letter every day.

One more couldn't hurt.

From the very moment his pencil touches the page, it's clear this will be the last letter he will ever send.

He writes about the war, the grand futility of it, and the friends he made in his troop, who's bodies lay motionless in a trench somewhere. They all had significant others too.

Did they have the privilege to die a slow death? Just like he has the pleasure to make his last moments about her?

He writes about all the traits he remembers about her; the way her black hair shined brown in the sun, the bridge of her nose that tilted to the side ever so slightly.

He writes about how he wanted a future with her. How he wanted two daughters and a stereotypical white-picket fence home in the suburbs.

He tries not to think about his blood seeping into the soil below him.

Foreign blood on foreign land. The writer in him wonders if his blood in the dirt will act as some sort of cursed fertilizer; if something will bloom, if new life will grow from the loss of another.

Maybe his death would mean something then.

He writes the truth about the garden he kept trying to build in their backyard.

How it was an unfinished project that was halted by the war, one that he kept secret from her only because he knew white lilies were her favorite flower, and how he wanted to surprise her one spring with rows upon rows of them.

How he wanted her to be her happiest when he finally proposed, surrounded by white petaled declarations of his love.

He imagines the look on her face when she reads the letter and finds out. The thought brings out a weak smile.

His vision begins to fade at the edges.

He writes about how the only woman he ever wanted to touch was her. How he memorized the weight of her hand in his so he would never forget it when he lifted the gun. How most men wore crosses around their neck but he wore a locket with her picture tucked inside, and when he kissed it for good luck, he imagined the rusted steel was her lips-

The pencil slips. He's too weak to raise it up again. He looks down, the blood now forming a pool around him.

The universe is harsh, cruel. Here he lay dying for a war he didn't even want. There had to be some solace, somewhere. Maybe that's why people invented religion.

He wasn't a religious man, and he didn't know if he was facing some kind of twisted karma for all of his sins, but with his last breath, he prayed. For the first and final time in his life, he prayed.

He didn't know where he was going to be buried but he prayed that white lilies would bloom over his grave.

[my-decaying-bones]

The ocean reminds me of home.

Waves echo against the shore like your laughter in my head.

Footprints scattered in the sand the same as your words in my memories.

A breeze just as soft and warm as your smile in photographs.

The ocean feels like home.

You feel like home.

[my-decaying-bones]

I want someone to consume

me.

Cradle me in the deep security

of their teeth

I want my lover on a chain

barking at any passersby who try

to gaze into my windows.

A kiss like a murder of crows,

circling the one who wields

his "good heart" like a sword.

Give me a knight of blood

debts,

Stalking the streets like a

panther through a concrete

jungle.

Carve me deep in the crevasses of

your brain,

Swaddle me between the

myofibril of your muscles.

love me, consume me.

I need to be all you’ll ever need.

[my-decaying-bones]

I cannot remember

The sound of your voice

And yet-

And yet,

It is the only thing

That I can think about.

[my-decaying-bones]

When they ask me about you,

I could talk for hours.

I see the look on their face

when I have been talking for too long,

but I will carry on talking anyway.

I have too many words to say,

they fall out of my mouth and

I stumble over them when I'm nervous.

It isn't just words that come to mind.

It's pictures and places and songs

and memories and smells and sounds;

that smell and sound of you,

My mind is consumed by it.

So, forgive me, if I get carried away

describing how much I love you

to strangers.

[my-decaying-bones]

I wish you knew

the thoughts I have about you.

I can't always articulate

the way I feel.

I wish I could explain

the feeling I get when

I wake up to your face

or the way my heart jumps

when you say my name.

I wish you knew

how I describe you

to strangers

and the songs

that make me think of you.

I wish I could explain

how you have healed me

in ways I didn't know possible.

I wish I knew how to thank you for that.