Playing Funeral, etc.

By

Nate Ritchie
 

Playing Funeral
 
They’re burying another doll
at the withering corn field’s edge.
They don’t know six feet
from six inches, but
into her grave goes Raggedy Ann.
They don’t know death
from a very long nap, but
they’ve seen enough funerals.
Life imitates art, I suppose.
What’s a funeral
if not bleak performance art?
A ritual, you might say.
Kids are terrifyingly quick
to pick up on the motions,
to act without understanding,
little meaning behind what they do.
Of course, their bubbling minds fill
all the tiny, important gaps
we so carelessly leave.
It’s only a short stint in Hell –
her fourth, by my count –
before Raggedy Ann rises again,
eager to play another day.
What else would happen?
She was just sleeping,
you dummy.



Overdose Loneliness
 
I feel the cold hands of loneliness
split in two, my narrow rib cage.
Last night, it swallowed my soft heart
from inside the right atrium.
Its desolate birthplace, I think.
It wants out of this maddening maze,
to shed my frail cocoon of a body
and find someone worth living for.
Watching night rain crash
against cracked, black frosted glass,
I let loneliness devour
the wall of my chest.
The rain will stop soon.
The rain will stop.
I’ll never feel loneliness again.



Wishing for an Ending
 
A black-winged fairy
visited my gelid dreams.
She offered a single wish,
anything I desired.
I wished for someone
young and naïve
as I once was.
A soul bursting with flame.
Someone to take my place.
Someone to set me free.
Only a dream, however.
I’m still paying
for my mistakes and
the mistakes of others before.
I’m still wandering
somewhere in the dark.
 
 
Nate Ritchie is a horror fiction writer, journalist, and poet from Ohio.