You are young
and still don't understand why you should be afraid of the dark
so you venture into it.
Leave behind the crying people,
and your parents blank faces
surrounding the urn that cradles your sister's ashes.
No one has told you why she wanted to be burned so you do not ask.
You don't know this yet, but you never will.
Imagine you are chasing fairies,
it helps you to ignore the cold,
the pinch of your Sunday shoes,
the voice of your older sister whispering that you will be caught.
But you are determined to have an adventure
and so you run.
Years from now you will remember this moment,
you will swear you could feel the brush of fairy wings
against your face as you rushed away from the marble mausoleum;
but there are no trees
only dirt, only gravestones,
only bushes too high and wide
for your arms to reach around.
Run until the ground rises up,
and greets your body with a bone crushing hug.
It will not let you go, no matter how hard you struggle
or how loudly you scream.
Dirt covers your head and you fear you are being buried alive.
You are not.
This will not stop the nightmares that come later.
(You are twenty and you are speaking to your therapist
she tells you to breathe, she tells you again.)
Time passes, as time has a habit of doing,
and you are standing above ground.
You cannot feel your fingers
only the curious stares of your cousins
and the long suffering sigh from your mother
who wipes the dirt from your face, absentmindedly.
“Did you go off to play and get lost?” she asks.
“You promised you'd stay put.”
You say nothing.
“You are so beautiful. Such pretty eyes.” she says, struggling to smile,
to say words that she thinks will calm the heart clawing at your chest
the way you clawed at the walls of your grave.
You are covered in dirt. There are rocks in your shoes.
You have lost your favorite bow.
You say nothing.