I want to rot.
I want to decompose.
I want the furnace of my crumbling organs to burn
so hot that it kills the grass above my grave.
Then I want it to grow back,
slowly, around the edges.
Until tender shoots nestle against the downy pelt of a rabbit.
Until velvet lips of a deer tear me out by my roots.
Until the water in my stalks dissolve into its bloodstream
and I spill through the chambers of its heart.
Thrumming as my petals unfurl and face the summer sun.
Thrumming with wild, vibrating insects harvesting the pollen from my buds,
dripping, sticky and viscous, down waxen walls.
Not the moldering sleep of the dead,
but the explosive cacophony of an afterlife.
Laura Marden (she/her) is a speculative and weird fiction writer. Her work has been published in The Chamber Magazine, Creepy Podcast, and The Q&A Queerzine. Her short story “Until Prophecy’s End” can be found in the Seers and Sybils anthology from Brigids Gate Press. This is her first published poem. She lives in Maryland with her family and finds that the best time to write is when they’re all asleep.
Header photograph by Jen Ippensen
Header artwork by Jordan Keller-Wilson
Vast 
This is exquisite.