Graveyard Dirt

I swallowed one even though I knew I shouldn't, but the allure of the numb carelessness it would soon bring enticed me to break my own trust. So I wandered in a haze beneath the partly cloudy sun and entered the threshold between the living and the dead, their cold tombstones a promise of what was to come. Of the peace the battle-worn crave.

Graveyard dirt caked my hands as I breathed in the stale earth. It smelled like home, and my soul craved to go home. It wasn't here or there, or anywhere other than the suffocating embrace the dirt would bring.

The dirt blocks out the sun and fills my lungs, and my eyes flutter with debris. The world is so far above now, and it's so cold down here. I can no longer breathe. All that exists now is silence, the chill, and the smell of stale earth packed around me like a blanket of comfort.

I am finally home. It is time to rest. Sleep — just sleep for now. The rest is but a dream.

©2021 Shane Blackheart