they don’t wait for the grave.
they start digging
the moment you clock in.
a little deeper every day—
beneath the fluorescent lights,
beneath the bills piling up,
beneath the weight of everything
you were supposed to be
but never got around to.

they bury you early.
in offices,
in traffic jams,
in cheap apartments with walls
thin enough to hear your neighbors fighting.
in the same bar every Friday night,
where the jukebox keeps playing the same sad songs
and the bartender pours another round of regret.

they say,
“this is just life.”
and maybe they’re right—
maybe you’re supposed to carry
that invisible coffin on your back,
marching forward
like you don’t feel it getting heavier.

I knew a woman once.
she refused the shovel.
quit her job, sold her car,
got on a bus going anywhere.
people called her crazy.
but she sent me a postcard
from some small town by the ocean.
she said the air tasted like salt,
and she’d never felt more alive.

they bury you early.
unless you fight.
unless you throw the dirt back in their faces
and run like hell toward something,
anything,
that doesn’t feel like dying.