What Death Doesn't Know

We grasp desperately for each other's hands,
arms outstretched

across the hollow, foggy abyss of superficial interactions

and an existential pointlessness

that sticks to our skin

and sinks low,
like dead weight hanging onto our limbs. 

Yet still our fingers remain intertwined,

writhing, burrowing,
clasping and clenching,
pulling and squeezing
to gain purchase on sweaty palms and

bruised, swollen fingers.

Yet still we dig our nails in,
clawing at one another,
gritting our teeth,
jaws fastened shut,
lungs crackling like firewood, smoke

spilling out from behind our eyes,
murky tendrils twisting outwards from our nostrils,
billowing. 
And we hold tighter,
barely able to breathe,
pulling ourselves up,
scrambling against the dirt, toes

turn to ash,

but we will not pause
to let the earth consume us.

The smoke is now seeping through our skin, 

our hearts sobbing and aflame
like weeping funeral pyres.

Soot coated throats-
sticky chimneys
clogged with tar resin residue.
We cannot breathe,
only hold our hopes close lest they drift

off with the smoke,
charred flesh floating on a breeze to

graves unknown.

But what Death doesn't know
won't hurt him-
like rising undead from the dirt,

palms clasped,

feet digging into the earth,
alone in these two parallel pits,
but whispering under our breath,
"They haven't buried us yet...
they haven't buried us yet!"
As we claw our way out,
never loosening our grip,
fingers crusted
with dirt and ash and blood,
torn nails down to the nub,
heaving our burnt bodies onto the surface.

Heaving, our sunken chests are reinflated 

as our jaws release

and we gasp for air.

Coughing up smog and solitude,

our organs rendered flesh again,
We wash our hands in the basins of each other's palms,

marveling at skin that, for the first time,
is almost
whole.

And the cavities we left behind-
Earthly entrenchment,
entrapment of the loneliest kind,
We fill up with sawdust and laughter

and no trespassing signs.

Our hands are pressed together, still 

bearing crescent moon scars, a reminder
that "as good as dead"
means STILL ALIVE,
that "one foot in the grave"

means one foot on SOLID GROUND,
that even when you're at the bottom of the grave,
that does NOT mean "buried"

We are all rotting in our own fathomless pits,

waiting 

for someone to reach out

and grasp our hand,

waiting

for the impossible feeling of not being alone,

after all.

We all suffer alone,
but we survive
together.

We laugh,
in that bittersweet way,
about how Death 

almost got us.

Reviews

[Chris]

Our world and lives were narrowed through no fault of our own and yet WE pay over and over as we live in the darkness left as all the could-have-beens whisper behind our eyes. And it keeps being whispered that THIS was intentional yet no one is ever held responsible and it just continues.

[Gaurav]

this is amazing piece and contains some pertinent thoughts on the concept of death - the subject that living can't comprehend