writing prompt: you are attending your first funeral. Write a poem about the experience and how it makes you feel.

You’re over there

Down the endless aisle,

Surrounded by unfamiliar figures,

Unknowingly guarding the path with murmurs and stabbing silence.

Just like that night,

I can’t seem to move.

Their eyes 

Drown me in condemnation and curiosity.

Their bodies 

Held back by the perception of what mourning should look like:

Proper and well-kept on the outside;

Wrath and desire to pounce on the inside.

What was I to them but an enemy?

Little do they know,

I’m here for the same reasons as them,

But without the rage, 

With a thin layer of judgment

And a thick layer of guilt-

Haunting my healing with blame,

And empathy-

Magnetizing your lost emotions

And everyone else’s grief.

The last time we saw each other,

I couldn’t look you in the eyes,

But I want to now

One last time.

Yet the stares chain me down,

Telling me,

“You move, you die.”

I will never see acceptance.

Not here,

Not ever.

The enemy put you in that box.

To them,

The enemy mocks them

With her appearance.

Understanding seeps through my tears;

Contempt escapes with every deep breath I release.

I should be the one seething.

You would be on my side,

If you weren’t weighed down

By the label acquired from the consequences

Of the unforgivable act.

At least,

I hope you would have.

I blame my strong pull to torture myself

In the gathering of my haters,

As if I never asked to be accompanied.

They must’ve thought it would be too much.

And they weren’t wrong.

An atmosphere is only awkward

To those without the internal experience required.

As I stand here,

In the shadows of the carved wooden doors of the church,

Hidden behind the beaming twilight,

Retreating seems impossible

And Improbable,

At least without conflict.

In my devoted stare,

Unbreaking from your casket,

I daydream about the possibility of unity

That will never become a reality.

We may never see eye-to-eye–

After all,

Does it really matter, now?