Every dead thing is in need
of more mourning,
a dream, a lover, your old self, the past,
all defunct, yet alive in numerous ways.
The Animate, the inanimate
still haunting us, still warm in our thoughts
and cold in the earth and time.
A non-existence, a void that needs
to be filled with wreaths,
memories, regrets, silences
words left unsaid, love left unprofessed
chances not taken,
afraid to begin with or
merely once failed.
Every death a reminder
of our own,
grief for a lost part of
our life, almost
one with our body.
Mourn them, lest too
quickly forgotten.
like I have,
the walls of my old house
the paints, the smells
I don’t remember them.
Slowly, slowly,
it fades into white anosmia,
once my home
now a dead body
that I didn’t take
time to mourn.