Death of a Nihilist [poetry]

24. good mourning, midnight

everybody had something to say about the criminals:

some wanted 'em send to the grinders,

others wanted 'em dump in the pig pens.

few wanted to pulverize their meat

for the hungry orphans

still crying for their parents'

crushed corpses to come back alive.

many wanted bygones to be bygones,

teach those bastards how to scream

while hungry pigs devour their flesh and bones,

leaving behind nothing but teeth and hair.

in the end, the criminals were hanged.

up on shaky crosses:

nails drove into clasped palms and crooked feet.

eyes scooped out of sockets,

shoved into slacked mouths.

fingers snapped at the knuckles,

left flailing along the way

like abandoned geckos' tails,

littering the base of their graves.

we can hear their bones clattering at night,

shivering against the dry, acrid desert gales,

condensing in gathering sandstorms

rolling up and down steep sand dunes.

we can hear their groans scraping at dawn,

cutting beneath the pulsing heatwave undercurrent,

swelling in ankles and wrists and bellies

swollen from rusted metals of chains and cuffs.

we can hear their sobs echoing at noon,

rising above the screeches of raptors and decomposers

circling the sky and the ground above and below,

nipping away at skins, blood, organs

till their bare skulls, hair, tattered clothes

flapped like war banners in the wind.

at the town's square,

we left the criminals there

on shabby, rotting crosses,

creaking and wheezing under the weight

of their unknown, unforgotten sins.

even in their deaths, their bones pleaded.

⸻

prompt: lose your eyes