Rot

Freya McAfee

Rot

Eventually becomes food,

Eventually becomes fertilizer,

Eventually becomes seed,

Eventually becomes life.

But

First it’s pain,

First it’s agony,

First it’s despair,

First it’s death.

Skin sloughing off your body like heaps of hot wax,

Mind melting into a state of matter you cannot recognize,

Heart twisting towards a memory you cannot recall,

Throat thick with blood that should not be there.

You’ve withered.

Birds peck at your corpse.

Their excrement feeds the ever-hungry soil.

Granules of you merge back together.

A seed becomes eyes becomes heart becomes mind becomes skin becomes bone.

Arms reach hungrily for the sunshine above.

Open mouth catches raindrops and gasps big breaths of air.

Pulling yourself out of your grave, you are bare and naked and filthy.

But your skin is tougher.

Your mind is sharper.

Your heart is softer.

Your eyes are clearer.

You’ve grown.