rusted

by Mikayla Maeshiro 

i am the host to a funeral in my brain
an open casket with no body
a eulogy gratingly carved in sepia
grave-robbed flowers pay their respects
the living are not worthy of mourners. 

caked clay under my nails
rebuilding scenes of you and i
mushrooms grow out of my veins
whispering i have stayed too long
but the dirt soothes the scars of quixotic fantasies
so i will remain here with the suffocated worms.

radiate the flash of umber
before your eyes open
and your stomach drops
to your personal acre of hell
knowing i would prepare it just for you.

deceptions of the heartbroken cowboy leech onto me
burnt hallucinations of spilled black coffee
stain the freshly-healed skin
from praise to prayers to pleading
the pew splinters under the non-believer
swallowing the heretic whole.

Mikayla Maeshiro is a creative writing student at Chapman University in Orange, California. She grew up in Kāneʻohe, Oʻahu, and has always found joy in fiction writing. She hopes to publish a bestselling novel in the next decade.