in death as in life

how would my carcass look?—
empty or full,

or apathetic or scornful to all those who pass
by my unwavering blank eyes, with the archaic
virtues of respect for the dead — no, i do not
need that. i would want to hear the music of
flies and maggots on my beautiful blue skin,
like an adornment to horrify, a sacrilege to
the ritual of burning and burying secrets,

like a gruesome display of life and all that
it comes to when you take a longer than expected
pause from breathing, and seeing through fairy-
light eyes,

or would my limbs point at them without reproach
with my breath holding the remnants of smoke,
my skin translucent, and eyes closed, as i keep
on looking, and looking, for something.

perhaps the strangeness of my stillness (coursing through
my lifeless body) would be becoming on me.

perhaps i would look wanted and loved, the way i could not
feel when alive.

perhaps being organic refuse, i would be eaten from within
and out, and thus would discover who i am beneath all
these unknown persons i borrow myself from every day.

what a terrible tragedy it would be if it is not so,
if death like life would abandon me?—

a broken boy with silver trinkets gleaming
at the end
of sunlight.

.

© Anmol Arora

Image source (Pablo Picasso, La mort de Casagemas, 1901, Paris, musée Picasso)
Linking it up with the Tuesday Platform at With Real Toads

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