Various Stages Of Ugh

A dance that never ends

Ten years ago I waited my turn

To drop a handful of dirt on the box

With you inside.

A week later, there was grass seed spread

On the dirt-clump rectangle.

Two months later,

Grass,

but still no headstone.

I haven’t been back.

On Tuesday nights I sit in our booth at that bar on the corner.

It’s a Mexican place now, so I order fajitas instead of fries.

September at the county fair,

I stand an hour in line for our favorite ride

And they strap in a stranger beside me.

Sometimes I order your favorite beer,

And sometimes I listen to your favorite bands,

And when I remember you talking, your voice is theirs.

Sometimes I walk by the empty corner where our house used to be.

And I sit on porches where you used to sit.

And I pass the building where you used to work.

And I talk to the people you used to talk to.

Everything about you is Past Tense,

But I’m surrounded with you.

I don’t visit you in the cemetery.

Why should anyone?

Every person who ever lives

Leaves behind 1000 graves

In every place they ever were.

And the rest of us spend our days

Watching where we walk.

Trying to avoid wide open pits

Open and hungry.

And everywhere I go,

I see them.

Some days,

Jaskier, marching up to yell in the monster’s ear: Hey, pubeface, did your momma make that skull helmet for you?  Have you ever even heard of a Furminator?  How many years has it been since you had flea pills, because I see something hopping and it’s not this party.  Is that mange or are you just going bald?  Your tail - 

[The monster howls in pain, rears back, and keels over dead.]

Geralt: ……..what???

Geralt, from the next room: Quit telling everyone I like your singing!