Bones

It’s 6. I’m sitting in the van after work. The alarm for my meds goes off. Mechanical. Methodical. That is how my days have become.

I wash the pill down with 2-day-old coffee sitting in the cup holder.

My eyes are sore and dry from always being so wet.

Acquaintances and friends come. They hold me throughout the day.

They say they are so sorry.

I say I am too.

I hold it all surface level. Like a glass full of water about to spill over. Surface tension.

Until I get safely to the van where I can cry loud and ugly and no one can hear it.

This grief is a voracious, rabid animal ripping you from my flesh.

Bone exposed.

I am a rack of bones moving through the world. 

I am teeth in a skull in the desert. An eternal grimace in the sand. 

Which is still more than you are now...black ash, wet with rain.