Alive

Are you alive? Am I?

I feel lethargic, like I can't move, can't breathe.

I feel like I'm swimming through quicksand, my movements growing slower by the minute.

I feel dead.

The nails are already in my coffin, and I can smell the rich, freshly upturned earth surrounding me.

But I'm not. Right?

I feel my heartbeat, slow, faint, fluttering-

but there. I am alive.

Aren't I?

If I can feel my heartbeat, pulsing in my head, that means I'm alive.

So I'm alive. That's what you told me.

"You're so alive, so beautiful."

Another that made me laugh,

"I love you."

Did you?

Is love the reason you placed your hands on my skin, on the insides of my thighs?

Causing not butterflies, but hornets-

Not sunshine, but rain?

Is love why you did this to me?

The freshly upturned earth around me is a grave, but it is a shallow one.

Is love to blame for this?