I am told: die twice,
first when I die
and again the last time my name is said,
as if I wouldn’t wish to get all my deaths
over with at once instead of waiting in dirt
for grandchildren to pass, and what
when some futuristic high schooler
looking for sources for his paper
on the colloquialisms of a bygone era
comes across my personal Twitter:
resurrection?
As if words are so powerful,
as if vibrations of my spoken name
can travel through earth to my buried body,
a defibrillator for my heart,
my second heart, my hidden heart,
whose BPM is calculated
by the number of times my name is said
to the power of those that hear it,
all the power is with those that hear it.
Would I be able to at least hear what they say,
or just lie in silence, having to trust
that the living built my tomb walls strong enough
to keep me safe from my past and its interpretations.
Really,
I fear being alive
and alone,
my name forgotten by man
years before it’s ready for headstone.
Would I begin to rot where I stood? Left to wander,
maybe through forests and empty lands but eventually
into crowds of the loved and hated, the known,
who would surely notice me, the living monster of melting flesh,
a monster, funnily enough, who’s not easy to forget.
The legends and fright and folk songs
would revive my second heart with new legacy,
but a legacy of nightmares and worm-eaten eyes,
the rotting girl who came surely to consume us.
Even the power of that legacy
would not restore my fallen body,
only tie me in this zombie form
to a world that will not let die.