Tired. Tired and dirty. But it was over. She'd done the unthinkable. As if killing the bastard hadn't been enough of doing the unthinkable. She had been tired of him hounding her thoughts and dreams. She had grown tired of the walking nightmare, of the idiotic fears and fantasies. She'd paid cash for the shovel at an old Army-Navy surplus store and had driven to the graveyard in the dead of night. She'd had a chuckle at that - the dead of night. For all the cuts and wounds she'd given him, she felt like she was the one who was dead walking into that graveyard. And yes, she'd dug him up. Wasn't hard to do. He was wildly unpopular and his grave was well placed for robbing. The coffin was cheap, just like he had been. His rotting corpse was disgusting to see, to smell. It had shocked her that he'd gotten none of the usual treatments from the mortician. Maybe she wasn't the only one to have had some opinions about him. Amazing that a mortician would actually break the law out of spite. She'd decided to send that mortician an anonymous gift. The spade made short work of his skull and chest. And she knew it was over. She was rid of him and the nightmares he'd given. It was over.

Smiling softly to herself, she showered the last of him away. And she was finally happy.

my tears fall useless
on a fallow field
the harvest is past due
and the children are starved
I've worked the ground
ploughed and tilled
hoped and prayed

my tears fall useless
on my barren fields
planted and watered
nothing will grow

my tears fall useless
on my empty field
the farm repossessed
the children fled

my tears fall useless
into my empty hands
calloused and bruised
ring-less and alone

my tears fall useless

How does a boy tell his mother
he doesn't want the gift she gave
How does a father tell his kids
that human love is spoiled
How does a husband tell his wife
how much she is missed
How does a man tell his God
that he thinks He messed up
How does a doctor tell his patients
he doesn't have a cure

How do I say all those things
that need saying
How can I express
What is inexpressible
How can I
How can I

Sitting at home, she thought she was finally safe. It has been too long to worry about, she kept telling herself. Nobody suspects what I have done, and the idiotic zombie never showed. Still. Something nagged at the back of her mind. She'd had a couple date, but couldn't escape the feeling that he would walk through the door. She'd made more than one trip to verify the grave was undisturbed. Like some modern perversion of Shakespeare, she thought she could see a tinge of blood under her nails; she thought she could taste his blood when she was trying to enjoy a meal. Was she cracking-up? She didn't think so, the Zombie crisis not withstanding. She'd not gone back to church, though. She just couldn't bring herself to look in the priest's eyes again. She sank down in her chair and turned up the CD to drown out her thoughts.

Grind my bones to dust
fillet my back
crack open my joints
and pour salt in my skull
not a whit of difference
would it make

For I am a man undone
broken and destroyed
Faithless, formless
without honor or pride
castrated and emasculated
pounded and pushed down
I realize now
what I am

Carrion fodder for the ambitious
hungry and rapacious
no humpty dumpty can I be
there will be no
putting back together again
I am a broken man
In body, mind and spirit

Now leave me be
for those who I am to feed

Death by a thousand cuts
Well, I've had my share
And double that
So where is my due
My reward
My end

You promise one
And give another
You say it is this
When all along
You knew it was that

Death by a thousand cuts
I have been sliced to ribbons
And yet
Here I am
Without the promised
End

looking into the sun
and my eyes are blind
behind the darkness
i truely begin to see
your face and the idea of you
distorted made clear
as fantasy from reality

what i once thought i saw
has been burned clean
a new picture resolves itself
new yet known

sleep now alone
comfortable in your solitude
i can see now who you are
and now i really know