CW: Disturbing

When you die and get buried underground, your still, lifeless face will gaze up at your loved ones as they cry and mourn their loss. Some will cry for months and months on end, while others will feel immobilized, frozen because they simply cannot feel sadness or sorrow. As time goes on, your body will shrivel and shrivel until you are no more. The bugs and bacteria gnawing away at your flesh will mourn you too.

They will hear your laughter and your unshared thoughts. The exciting news your friends never bothered asking about, and your cries from the time you moved cities for the boy you thought you loved, and then you moved back home and had your mom hold you whilst you cry. 

They will smell the perfume you put on and the scents of all the people you’ve hugged.

The bugs will gnaw away at your scars, the ones you got from falling over on your scooter or the ones you got from cutting onions, and feel the pain and frustration that you did. 

These bugs will become part of you, and they will remember every time you stopped and looked in the mirror while doing your makeup, thinking it was the worst thing you could ever do to yourself. Then when these bugs start to eat away at your eyes, they will see the little red triangles that have been formed from all the times you’ve cried. They will see the tear marks on your cheeks from when you lost your favorite toy, when you didn’t get the job you wanted, when your child was born and when they moved out. 

These bugs will consume whatever is left of your memories, hungrily moving on to the next one. But once they’ve eaten away all your perfect imperfections, and your bones are left behind for eternity, these bugs will move on to another body, and gorge on the same things. Different, and yet the same. 

Writer – Maria Secara
Editor – Ally Chu
Artist – Natalie Choi

–June 2024–