Evidence of Life

My tongue disappears 

Falling back 

Down my throat

Into the void 

Of my center

My eyes vacant 

As my mouth remains mute. 

My eyes close as I lean back 

Into the water. 

Gurgling sounds of “Why don’t you like to talk about yourself?’

Wobble above me

The warped sound of 

Hearing voices from under water 

As my mind retreats to a full 

Underwater dissociation 

How quickly from just grabbing coffee, 

To falling down my 

Throat

To lying on my back 

Under the water 

Of all the things I’ve left

Unspoken 

When the question 

Is 

 … me 

Not reborn, 

No Lazarus here, 

No magical magnetic intervention of the spirit, 

But still I 

Rise out of the water 

To walk over to the archeological 

Dig site 

Of my past 

Looking for evidence 

Of a life lived 

But there’s nothing there 

Just a half written tombstone 

Crumbling in the dust

A life unfinished 

Petrified to be written 

Compelled by the urgency of 

How short life is. 

The irony too deep to etch on a tombstone

It would crack it through the middle. 

But here i am, 

Drenched, 

In the feeling of everything 

I haven’t processed, 

Fumbling in the dirt 

A hole of my own making

Mistaking 

A question of life 

Embodied 

For a question 

Of the body of a life 

Whether i 

feel 

it 

Or I 

Fill 

It

And all the dirt. Where to put all this displaced distracting. 

Flinging shovel-fulls of earth of the sky

To distract my friends 

Asking about me. 

They sit, confused, mugs in hands, 

Brows questioning, 

Wondering why I’m parading around with a shovel 

Digging for evidence

Of what I’ve lived 

When life isn’t evidence, 

Life isn’t artifact, 

It’s in the dirt being flung, 

It's the creation. 

What’s past is past. 

Don’t go digging for evidence of yourself. 

Weave yourself now 

From the remnants of the cocoon you burst free from 

There’s nothing to dig up 

Nothing you left behind

Nothing else you need. 

There’s nobody down there. 

No body of evidence either. 

Come back to the living. 

Shovel down. 

Head above water.

Your story will tell itself 

In time. 

Not in water. 

Not in dirt. 

Not in fear. 

In time. 

In love.