Dust

I wonder how long it takes
For human hands
and lovely limbs
to diminish into bone
then stone and dust
and ashes.

I wonder how long it takes
For sandpaper words
to grind and chew
and spit,
to terrorize and finalize
us into hard and plastic
bits.

We read of blood leaving bodies
as bullets batter them
into meaningless matter
yet we forget
how hearts react
and squeeze, retract
to the trigger
of voices from the grave.

So we scrimp,
we rummage, we save,
hoping to dig up
souls from children
hit and struck down
by the gun sounds
and racing shots
of voices heard down the hallway.

The still small silence
of bodies collecting dust
in lockers and locked rooms,
waiting for the verbal slaughter
by trolls and zombies,
crawling and limping

sarcophagus
esophagus.

We forget
What it means
to see and be afraid,
to hear and heave a voiceless scream,
that Halloween might be an all year nightmare
for those left to rot in the dark.

We forget
What it means
to want to return to dust,
the quiet ashes of nothing,
the lull of invisibility
When all we are is what
They see.