I’m shiny and 12 again.
I’m scraping the topsoil with my hands.
When I was 12 I used to love when I got sweaty and funky and other people would say you stink and it would make me cry but those tears and those insults and purposely skipping baths helped me to feel like I existed.
He was a daffodil to me.
4 feet deep is enough.
I’ve never stopped being 12.
Beg me if you want me.
The excavated soil I’ve unearthed is close for back filling, you’ll see.
I was 12 when I was 16 and I let him tell me that I was pretty enough and then turn around and tell me that I wasn’t good enough. I stank.
He was a sunflower to me.
I’ll never not stink.
No coffin is required, just the night.
Beg me if you want me to stop.
I was 12 when I was 23 and 35 and 40.
And he, whoever he was, was a tulip and a gladiola and a pink dahlia to me.
And I kept ruining me on purpose because if he, whoever he was, didn’t tell me I was ruined how would I know that I was even there?
I carry all of them with me down into the cool moist depths; the orchid that he was and the tiger lily the other was and the rose that you are.
I’m shiny and 12 and the sun is my headstone.
The wind will blow the mound on us.
Beg me, please.
I’m 12 now, but will I be, at 53 at 67 at 82?
What will the smell of me be?
Until I see
Until I see
Until I see begging…
I’ll surround myself with the fumes of deaths and all my pretty flowers and we’ll lie down here together in the quiet as the insects feast.