Poems n' Stuff

Grave Dirt

I can feel the dirt underneath my fingernails as I slowly dig away at the earth that had been packed down so long ago. I have no idea if this is the same wet soil from years ago, or somehow new water had made its way into this anonymous grave.

There are no trees to move the water, and this yellow grass hasn't tasted rain in years, but for some reason I can only feel that this soil just isn't the same, maybe it was dug up without me?

As my cracked hands go further in the earth I can feel that something is just underneath my fingertips, something that my eyes wont want to perceive, but my heart wants to touch.

After hours of blurred digging handful after handful of grave dirt, I uncover what I buried so long ago, a tiny wooden box, handmade and painted with such love and care. It had been damaged from those years underground, I was almost scared to touch it.

I sat in front of the box for hours, just thinking. Then I opened it quickly, but held onto the lid, it filled me with a tainted sort of comfort, like slipping back into an ignorant bliss, and as much as I might have wanted to, it is impossible to un-know something.

Three photos, a cross, and a necklace rested in the same position they landed when I angrily threw them in there, I knew what I was supposed to do, but I couldn't understand how.

Eventually I realized, that there is no correct solution, and I was merely sitting in an empty field with a now empty grave, and a not so empty box.

I paid my respects for the objects that I used to love so dearly, I couldn't stand to let go just yet, so I put them back in their box, and put that box back in its grave.

I look at my memories and half hope that someone might stumble across it and take that handmade box, take it far away so that I wont feel bad about doing the exact same thing, but deep down I know that cant happen.

So I get up, with dirt and dust on my pants, and walk down the hill to the unknowing figure of my misery and looked into his unhappy eyes.

"I know I will come back, always have, and I know that you will be here, because you always have been, but this time and the next, it wont be for you."

I walked for miles and miles, out of that field, wondering why I still went out there after all this time. All I knew is that this would be the last time I felt that grave dirt underneath my fingernails.