Content warning: this poem contains themes of death, including animal death, and gore.

‘a prayer to decay’ by Lorien

1. Feathers

To the dead bird in my backyard, I am sorry. Your death was ugly. There is nothing beautiful about a hundred tonnes of steel and a scream beyond the range of human hearing. But being left, forgotten, body stiffening and then softening as your flesh unwinds, is a darker stain than the blood coating your chest. I cannot speak to your life; I never saw it. Only the path from your death into my hands, and your inky soft feathers, drifting in the corners of my vision like snow.

–

Shuffle in slowly, the mourning crowd.

Oh god.

He cannot hear you. This earth is filled with the remnants of thousands.

Hallowed be thy name

You walk upon the hallowed ground of a thousand graves.

–

2. Bone

Flesh and blood vessels are parted by gentle fingers. The process of removing muscle and tendon is a clumsy mimicry of natural decomposition; tweezers and scalpel have no drive to tear at flesh like beaks and claws, but they do the job well enough. The real work is done out of my hands, a slow melting into a putrid soup by microscopic mouths, as your bones float free to make their own meaning – after all, your story left the body with your soul, and the bones are their own story.

–

May you watch over our souls

Call to god to keep your soul, the only call down here is a deafening prayer to decay.

And keep us on your path

You will never scrub this grime from your boots.

–

3. Earth

Your remnants go to the soil and the crows. The water rich with the nutrients of maceration makes rotten ambrosia for the plants. Your death was quick, as best as I can tell. The jagged fractures along your ribcage seem to agree. But your epilogue will be a long twilight, as you slowly become part of the earth, feathers and bone and everything in between. Your bones will be the last of you to linger. A monument to your death, tall upon the dust, and I stand with them.

–

Let us bow our heads together

Look upon this firmament and breathe deep the smell of rot.

And make meaning of these stones.

The moss will cover it anyway, and our great accomplishments will become nothing more than landmarks to the worms.

Amen

Lorien (they/he/xe) is a 21-year-old disabled trans masc creative living in Boorloo. They enjoy collecting hobbies, feathers and bones. When he’s not procrastinating his uni work, you can find them outside watching birds or talking to xyr pet snails.

Photo by Jonathan Meyer on Unsplash.