Sometimes dead is better.

This NaPo week, I will be journeying to the Pet Sematary, a place that reveals truths more terrifying than death itself. Suppose you could get back the thing you miss the most, but it comes back, now undead, but never quite the same. This NaPo week, I will bury my words in my own Semetery. Sometimes dead is better.

“He held her and rocked her, believing, rightly or wrongly, that Ellie wept for the very intractability of death, its imperviousness to argument or to a little girl’s tears; that she wept over its cruel unpredictability; and that she wept because of the human being’s wonderful, deadly ability to translate symbols into conclusions that were either fine and noble or blackly terrifying. If all those animals had died and been buried, then Church could die
(any time!)
and be buried; and if that could happen to Church, it could happen to her mother, her father, her baby brother. To herself. Death was a vague idea; the Pet Sematary was real. In the texture of those rude markers were truths which even a child’s hands could feel.”

Goals:
-7 poems
-10 comments on others' threads
-attend NaPo party

Table of Contents:

0. Louis himself felt a little like crying. A wild but not unattractive idea suddenly came to him...

1. Life sucks, then you die.

2. It's like many other things in life, Ellie. You keep on the path and all's well. You get off it and the next thing you know you're lost if you're not lucky.

3. It’s probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience.

4. Ellie wept for the very intractability of death, its imperviousness to argument.

5. I’ve never forgotten that lie. I don’t think children ever forget the lies their parents tell them.

6. We either learn to accept or we end up writing letters home with crayons. There is no gain without risk, perhaps no risk without love.

7. I remember my birthday party. Church was out in the road. So happy he came home. There was a truck, then everything went black.

*All titles and italicized text are direct quotes from the book "Pet Semetary" by Stephen King*

I have a feeling this thread is going to be gut-wrenching? Looking forward to all your wonderful poetry Ellie! Let's go!

Thank you so much, alliyah

Let's begin...

0. Louis himself felt a little like crying. A wild but not unattractive idea suddenly came to him...

Grief, death, burial,
humans refuse to accept
what we cannot change.

Walk on down to the
secret Pet Semetary,
come, we are waiting.

1. Life sucks, then you die

I leave tracks behind me, treading across this soil.
Gone to bury what has died.
Gone to bury what I cannot accept has disappeared.

The autumn air, my mother's tree,
Something about the darkness soothes me.
My feet scrape the leaves, like nails on a chalkboard,
my hands carving occult symbols, pounding a metal floor.
In my hands, life, death, and whatever is after,
this place, this curse, this grove, this laughter-

I will not allow what is dead to be dead,
I will dig up my treasures,
I will keep what I have.

Tomorrow I will return to find you again,
because life sucks, then you die,
but you were my only friend.

2. It's like many other things in life, Ellie. You keep on the path and all's well. You get off it and the next thing you know you're lost if you're not lucky.

I continue to move forward
Even though there is an invisible force
Pulling me. Its grip tightens around my neck,
I cannot speak, although I wish I could.

Something about me being from this place,
Makes me an unlovable creature.
(I don’t believe in ghosts until I knew
That they were not real. I became one,
Despite being granted another chance at life.)
Perhaps it’s the fact that I died,
But I have been reborn.

Maybe if I had stayed dead, I could have
Still been loved for who I was.
But something about this stench of death,
This inability to love in complex ways,
The way my eyes look when you stare deeply,

It is not the same.
Because something about who I used to be
Changed when I died
And you brought me back,
One too many times.

(Written yesterday when I had no wifi)

3. It’s probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience.

Can't you see that I am alive (again)?
Can'y you see that I deserve to live (because you made it so)?
Can't you see that I look like you (besides the dirt under my fingernails and my resurrected pallor)?

I instantly assume my worthiness to prowl
and pray in your presence,
but have never taken a moment to look myself in the mirror.

Looking at myself (M y s e l f, My, self).
You know my smile, but not the way my eyes turn
when i laugh, which is something I do a lot.
There is no limit to the pain you have inflicted upon me,
by refusing to acknowledge that I am the same
little girl I was when I died.

What are you going to do to me, kill me?
Is it even possible to die a second time?

4. Ellie wept for the very intractability of death, its imperviousness to argument.

I have spent so much time thinking about how I died, leaving behind my body, only to be reborn, resurrected, and reunited with everything I ever lost.

My death was invalid, but something about my bones and my flesh would not rot, despite being pulled up from the grave by an invisible force.

These events have captivated me and have not allowed me enough time to focus on the terror I feel when I think about being dead.

For the first time, under my ceiling plastered with stars, I weep.

I mourn the life that I will never have again, because something about me, despite my functions, is only recognized as flawed and unable to meet the demands of the living.

I look at the stars and I remember him,

I don’t want Church to ever be dead! He’s my cat! He’s not God’s cat! Let God have His own cat!

5. I’ve never forgotten that lie. I don’t think children ever forget the lies their parents tell them.

They say that the energy we each possess takes up about 6 feet of space outside of our bodies. Maybe that's why they buried me six feet deep when I died,

just deep enough to feel your feet lingering above me, just enough to feel your tears moisten the soil, but not close enough to smell you, hear you, or know for certain that you had returned to me.

i have returned from being dead, from that Semetary. and I am not the same, which is something I have realized you hate me for. i hope when you kill me again, you can bury me right beside the stream by our house. i would like to be close enough to hear the gentle noise of the water and the raindrops as they hit the surface during a storm. i would like to know that i am surrounded and embraced by the soil i built mud pies in as a child, perhaps my rotting body will be washed over with its dirt taste, one last time.

as a child, i was always friends with everyone who was hated because of the way they were born. something about being small and unable to control any part of yourself that others despised made my heart ache. i didn't realize that i was one of them until it was too late for me to draw a smile on my face and paint my skin with makeup.

something about being dead fills me with rage -people, places, things, anything i love, it never seems to fully satisfy me- it chokes me, in the sort of way where i feel like i may lose all control, again. you never told me you loved me, so i assumed you hated me. you never tucked me in at night, so i assumed you regretted me. you never kissed my skin, so figured i was born wrong.

you never lied to me, because you never said anything at all. i kept my six feet from you everyday. and now i am dead and i am learning to breathe for the first time. something about the way i feel right now makes me think that a plague is coming to destroy every person i have ever loved. my worst fear is that it is me.

Ahhh I think I held my breath reading that last poem. It's so good ahh.
Also I loveee the theme here!

6. We either learn to accept or we end up writing letters home with crayons. There is no gain without risk, perhaps no risk without love.

Well, after you brought me back to life, you let me live for six days before killing me again.

I was your little girl
who laughed so hard and could not stop.
you loved me more than you had the words to express
and I was your reason to live.

but when I died,
you could not accept the loss.
you chose to break the rules to see me again,

how did I change?

something about who I am now is unlovable, even though I am your same little girl, your Ellie Creed. normally being buried represents life, a rebirth, a baptism, a renewal. but something about me never left that grave, but what did leave was not who I used to be. even though I still feel like me.

having you kill me again,
destroyed the monster,
but it also destroyed the last piece of me that was left.

I'll always be your baby.
I wonder how long my fader drawing will stay on your fridge?
I'll always wonder if the risk was worth the reward,
and if the loss of love was worth gaining your freedom.

Thank you so much Quill and Elektra!! <3333 I appreciate your comments a lot!!

7. I remember my birthday party. Church was out in the road. So happy he came home. There was a truck, then everything went black.

Once upon a time, there was a happy family, a mother, a father, a son and a daughter, and even a cat.

One day, the cat died, so the father buried the cat in the Pet Semetary, so that he could come back to life for the daughter, Ellie.

The cat was never the same, which made Ellie really scared. Church, the cat, was released from the home. One day, Ellie saw Church on the road, so she ran to find him, but she ended up getting killed in an accident.

Instead of accepting that she was gone, the father buried her in the Pet Semetary.

And she was never the same. I was never the same.

I wanted to rest, but you could not accept that. You brought me back, but then hated me for who I was when I returned. You became afraid of me but you still tried to deal with me for as long as you could.

All you could say was "sometimes dead is better."

I thought you killed me a second time, but I am still here, in the Semetary.

So the girl killed her mother. And then she killed her father. And now she is going to kill her brother, so that we can all be buried in the Semetary, so that we can all be together, alive, again.

When things are quiet, if you listen really closely, the Semetary is calling out to you too.

Come and find it.

The end.