I don't remember how I died.
But I know I was younger than the rest—
far too young.
Because others look at me with pity.
They all have stories to tell—and
I have only silence.
At night, strange things come here—
shapes that shouldn't have names,
Scary looking things.
I press my small palms to my ears,
hoping sound cannot find me.
In the morning the living come:
they bring bright flowers.
Crowds, sometimes.
And I sit among them,
watching them do
whatever that they do.
Mine stays untouched.
My name—if it ever was spoken—is dusty, empty, forgotten.
There are no flowers on my stone.
No one lays a hand there to smooth away the moss.
Sometimes I want to follow the living to home,
to see the way a father ties a shoelace,
to taste the ordinary warmth of someone's kitchen,
to feel what it is to be held and called and counted.
But I'm afraid—
afraid of becoming a lost soul,
the kind they whisper about.
So I play.
I count the birds that land on weathered stones.
I race the shadows of trees across the grass.
I make friends with animals.
Where is my family?
Did I have a mother who sang? A brother who swore to protect me?
I don't think they forgot me...
but why don't they come to my stone? Like theirs do.
Not even friends come to my stone.
Did I… have none?
The priests pass sometimes, that is what they call them.
They say prayers that make the air thicken.
They speak of judgement and mercy in voices that tremble.
But why did the gods not come for me? To take me to afterlife.
Was I a bad person?
Maybe I was small and mean in ways I cannot recall.
And so, I am sorry. I truly I am.
But then daylight comes, and I remember another thing:
I move through cold air and feel no ache.
The things that stole breath from the living cannot touch me the same way.
I am free now—free from hunger.
Freedom tastes strange. It is both breeze and bruise.
Maybe someday someone will kneel by my place and remember.
Maybe a hand will brush my stone and whisper,
"How you been?"