Evening With Yours Truly

By Mia Willardson

When the sun closes its weary eyes  
and decides it's time to go to sleep,  
I creep out of the Earth,  
By this time of night no one hears  
the light tread of my feet as I ponder  
through the cemetery’s endless columns,  

“How sad,” I thought,  
“That after centuries of death, no one  
weeps for the crumbled tombstone”,  
I passed by an old friend of mine,  
I never knew his last name,  
It was simply forgotten,  
Decades of erosion and decay assured  
His privacy,  

I pondered of his kin as the taste of him  
Lingered in my mouth,  
I hummed a song from long ago,  
An ancient hymn embedded in my mind,  
My icy lips curled into a smile,  
I made my way to my favorite meal spot,  

A mossy gravestone,  
Chipped, aged, and ripened, Like a  
bottle of wine,  
I didn’t care much about what the  
stone said,  
From the greenness of the grass and  
the worms in the dirt,  
I was promised the dinner of kings,  

My filthy hands began to dig into the  
resting place below me,  
Until my fingertips brushed the wood of  
a coffin,  
I opened the box as if it were a present,  
The feast inside was better than any gift,  
I couldn’t help but grin,  

And so,  
When you wake up early on a Sunday  
morning,  
And see the dirt freshly upturned on 
your mother's grave, 
Wave to me from six feet above,  
Because I promise I see you,  
And I promise I’ll see you again, 
Years later when you’re brave  
enough to lie down next to your  
mother

Mia Willardson is currently a sophomore in high school and a part of her school's creative writing program. She loves reading, writing, watching movies & TV, cooking, and making weird things for her cat. Writing has been a passion of hers since she was little, she loves reading, watching, and telling stories, and she hopes that passion is what drives her in years to come.