Thinking Decomposition

Dark prose within the mind of the dead.

A summer day with no rain, and I have no breath.
Sizzling in a studio cardboard box with no ventilation. 
A slab of meat on the fryer, forgotten and overcooked.

Is this all life is? Run, live, die, get crispy, and blink out of existence?
Don’t you see, I didn’t want to live, the death part was fine. 
But what is this afterlife?

That is my new plain of existence!

No white chariot with doves flying beside me, 
This is bleak. 
It’s dark and foreboding.

Droplets of sweat etch my translucent brow, I can’t wipe it away. 
I’m not solid. 
The air is thick, like swallowing a pancake in one gulp.

How can this be the life after death for which I yearned? 
It wasn’t like the good book said. 
Not peaceful, not paradise.

Hell, at this point give me the devils with horns and a pitchfork.
Maybe a serpent-like tongue reaching seductively for my earlobe. 
I’m not picky!

Purgatory, a little game of limbo with a dead dictator or two. 
Dammit! Just not this, watching my shell rot away.
Hovering with an invisible tether to my corpse.

In the heat of this summer day, my body bubbled, oozed, and finally popped.
The rancid smell filled the building. 
Breaking and entering into every single hallway and floor.

This is the most I’ve ever gotten around compared to before. 
It took 14 days for the neighbors to notice I was spent. 
They finally couldn’t handle the eye-watering stench.

My door creaked open and my pieces squelched under the feet of white-cloaked men.
If hell were a place, this would be it. 
Cold, smooth, and zipped tight shut in a black trash bag.

Rollers vibrate my bones as they take me to the death house. 
These strangers cart my body and spirit.
This stupid fucking tether!

I pulled the translucent braided cord,
Attached tightly to my ghostly wrist and corpses ankle.
A divine toe tag.

They drive me to this little freezer,
At least I can’t feel the cold. 
Guess my corpse will gather frostbite or maybe it’s just a freezer burn.

Meditation is my only refuge now.
Out of body, out of mind so they say. 
In this case, that saying may be a bit too literal for my current state.