The Life We’ve Made

                                         
                                            See things do come around,

                                            and make sense eventually,

                                            Things do come around,

                                            but some things trouble me

                                                           -Ghost, Kid Cudi

Because tears are a sign of weakness:
we fawn at the sea turtle for shedding
her tears as she buries her eggs to hatch.

How brave, we say, as she drags her body
 across the sand. How lovely
to show warmth in a cold, sad world

 full of death, full of violence.
But the body knows when its about to die.
The body acknowledges when it is the end

and death circles you in small amounts of coziness
until you accept your fate. In a story about passing:
 I found myself standing on the edge of a grave –

 the stale smell of orchids, the metallic scent
of crushed grass, and the sight of a body
encased in a refined wooden box.

 Here, I tell myself
 grief is an ocean we must return to.


--Dominique C. Santos