The Graveyard

On By Shayleene MacReynoldsIn creativewriting

Sometimes, I imagine what it must be like to be buried underground.

When I miss my cousin terribly, I think about rolling back the grave grass like a carpet.  Like a blanket, or a sheet.  I could unbury him, and watch the ground unfurl.

When I was little, I was captured by the story of the boy who drank the sea.  Who swallowed up the tides so that all the hidden treasures on the seafloor were revealed.  The sparkling bits of shell and underbellies of a capsized ship.  If I could unbury the ocean, what sad stories would I find there?

Everything inside of my mind is becoming unearthed.  Sometimes, the process is confusing, and I find that I am dazed for days on end.  My heartmeat is wounded.  That bundle of internal flesh how it processes and processes and then how it fries and fizzles out.  In my meditations, a dark and ugly thought continues pushing its way through.  I know its name, but I do not feel comfortable with its presence in my mind.

Drinking up the ocean of my brainthoughts, there is almost too much there to look upon.  To sift through.  A glass armadillo rests upon the sand.  Beside it, a piece of plastic tubing.  A sleeping bag.  A near-to-empty bottle of Jack Daniels.  A discarded gameboard, with all the pieces scattered by the tides.  Charred books.  Even if I had a thousand years, there isn’t enough time for all the gathering.

This morning, from the porch, I watch the burning skies and how they mirror all the torment in my mind.  Smoke and mirrors.  All the chaos blowing in.  Somewhere someone wrangles horses for survival.

I remember when our home burned down, and how we dug through all the ash for pieces of our lives that we could cling to.  Solidarity.  A little fragment of the self to tether us back down to earth.  I remember how beneath the ash the element is charcoal.  I remember how my hands were black, and how my fingertips left imprints on the things that had not yet become dust.  Criminal, this act of sifting through a past.  Every object that I touch remembers me, and yet I leave such little trace.

Self-care.  A glass of wine.  What if one of the horses burned?

At the cemetery, I plant my fingers in the grass.  The mud clings to all the space between the skin between the nails, and I think perhaps that I won’t wash my hands ever again.  Maybe then I won’t forget.

A capsized ship, and how it looms inside a corner of my mind.  The broken sails, the tattered wood.  I stand outside, but I cannot enter in.  I reach out to touch it, and then I draw my hand back to my chest where all the wounded heartmeat lies.

Don’t push yourself, she says.  My therapist, how gentle she is.  How cautious.  How knowledgeable about the human mind how much she understands how close we are to fracture.  How she can see before I can the things that surface to undo me.

What if one of the horses burned?

I leave the wreckage of the ship.  Instead I stoop to gather up the small and shattered form of a glass armadillo.

Let’s talk about that, she says.

Let’s talk about that, I say.

And with one great heaping gulp of air I release the waters and the tides back out unto the ocean of my mindscape.  The capsized ship, now buried deep beneath the waters, awaits exploring for another day.  I leave the grass in order on the plot, and do not unearth the things that I’m not ready for exposing.

But I do not wash my hands.  I let the dirt collect between the skin between the nails.  So that then, this time, I won’t forget.

24 thoughts on “The Graveyard”

  1. This is so utterly beautiful that there are no words to describe the sheer pleasure I draw from reading your posts. Your words will stay with me all day along with this imagery… I wonder what would be on the seabed of my mind – what things – if I drained away the water – what would remain. Thankyou – another beautiful post

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  7. Magnificent, horribly tragic, but full of the promise of healing of a kind. So gifted, so blessed, so intelligent, there are great lessons in everything you write. My best wishes and my plea to keep forging on. In such dangerous and uncertain times, there are always a few people who can make a difference. You may never know how you help someone else, and that’s sad. But I believe you are one who makes a difference.

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    1. Thank you. Crippling hurt makes us one of two ways I think: kind or angry. I can’t say one path is more right than the other because it is terribly hard and sad sometimes to be a human. But once upon a time I swung to anger. Now, years later , I have found kindness–and I think that is something to be shared. Thank you for reading and for understanding–it is such a treasure to share this space with you. Big love ❤

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      1. I’m humbled. Thank you for your kind words. I too have often been angry but it does not help. I stopped at the store to get some milk. The Girl Scouts are into their annual cookie drive. They were so polite and kind. I bought five bucks worth and handed over a twenty and told them to keep it. Not much really but an act of kindness is ultimately the best medicine.♥️

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        1. An act of kindness is always the best medicine. Man, it’s just plain hard sometimes. But trying feels so wholesome and so good. Thank you for trying. I genuinely am so awed when I get to speak with people like you–it fills my heart. Keep on keeping on, friend. ❤

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  9. I don’t think we ever truly forget. It’s buried deep in the core of us, where all the shadow things hide, along with all the other things we hide, even form our Selves, sometimes.
    I so love how you choose to lift them up and gently, with your words, show them the light. 🙂

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