I yearn for the day
I am no longer seen as the corpse I carry.
I want to be looked at and seen precisely as I am,
not the dead person I wish to leave behind.

For people can no longer recognize me through the rot
Nor smell me through the death.

My corpse is a dead weight on my back,
it makes my knees buckle and bones ache.
As Atlas bears the weight of the heavens
I let it burden me like the world.

It only gets heavier as I walk,
Even heavier so under the critical eyes of my maker.
I am judged!
as my knees shake beneath the weight.

And I don't know how much more of this I can take,
How much farther I can walk.

I only wish to bury it
But it has been tied to me with knots I cannot see
My hands too weak to fumble with them,
I fear I must cut it from me
But that action is damning.

So I walk further still,
The corpse and I like one now.

I finally begin to wonder,
Am I as dead as my corpse?
Is its putrid smell now mine?
If I peel this corpse away, will I see sloughing skin behind?
I resist throwing it from my shoulders,
Even as it shackles my mind.

I am only afraid of the truth now,
That fear that fills my every living moment,

The fear that if I peel it from my spine now,
I will only find,
That there is no corpse there anymore
To peel
away.