A hole in the ground,
slowly filled,
shovelful by shovelful of damp earth
filling the space around the small mahogany box.
Memories are pushed to the surface,
elevated upwards by the soil.
They think of her,
just a girl, just a girl...
Mary,
that was her name.
She was stubborn,
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary”, they would all tease her jokingly,
and she laughed along,
because she thought it was funny,
and she knew it was true.
Mary,
just a girl, just a girl,
too young to die,
too old to live happily.
She had been part of the world, and one of the people,
she had seen what she wanted to be,
and she wouldn't rest until she reached it.

Long hair,
perfect skin,
flat stomach,
thin legs,
white teeth,
perfect face,
a skinny waist.

Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat
A mantra,
she would repeat it to herself every day
Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat
It gave her something that she mistook for strength, for life, for vitality,
Don't eat,
she would whisper it when she awoke
Don't eat,
she would match it in time with her steps,
Don't eat, don't eat, don't eat.

She saw who she wanted to be,
Her,
she would point her out,
that girl there,
the one on television,
the one who has everything,
the one who was everything,
Her,
the girl who she wanted to be.

But a body can only bend so far before it breaks,
can only take so much weight before it sinks,
can only take so much pressure before it bursts,
and for Mary,
she has broken, sunk, and burst.
Poor Mary,
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,”
oh Mary, what makes your stomach grow?
Now your buried deep, and covered with snow...

She's just a stone now,
and some memories,
no longer a body,
no longer a girl.

Slowly,
we are all going insane,
slowly, but surely, we are all slipping down the same path,
some pushed to the brink sooner than others,
some farther behind.
We all trudge towards our doom,
funneled and guided to the right area
by the hands of our society.

The end has been predicted many times,
in different ways, by different people:
many a stray asteroid has been foretold,
one that will sink it's rocky teeth into the earth,
and make it explode.

It seems like the end may finally be coming,
people have been pushed so far, that they have cracked.
Their minds have broken,
their thoughts have jumbled,
they don't know who they are.

They are zombies,
literally and figuratively.
Zombies.
The ones who have been consumed by society
and spit back out again,
forced to live in a world that they want no part of,
so they attack,
and,
much like the zombies from storybooks,
they have this strange appetite,
that is full of a thirst for others.

These people care not for the world,
or their own bodies even,
no, they don't care.
They rip themselves apart,
tear into their own flesh,
and escape reality,
finally,
after succumbing to their fate.

The world,
pushed against unseen boundaries,
forced to the brink of insanity,
has finally spilled over,
and now,
we must fight the zombies
inside ourselves.