The Archaeologist

the art of excavating a wound

I use my teeth to dig
I excavate memories of skin pulled taut over muscle and bone
I go until I start to taste the dirt, until artifacts catch in my teeth
I organize my findings based on how far they make me retract into or out of myself

I use my teeth to dig
I learn the taste of shame as it is of the earth
Its tendrils make home in the rot,
in crows feet and the asymmetric
I close my eyes and use my hands to read the stratigraphy like braille,
mapping out eons of remorse

I extract pieces of you from my skin
I save them in a mason jar
When I recall the consistency of your saliva I examine the biology
I find traces of desperation from the neolithic era;
An ancient sort of yearning passed down from generation to generation;
A longing so ravenous it can only be ancestral;
The result of a millennia worth of appetites never satiated

I trek from tundra to rainforest and back again
I find fossilizations of my anger
I find it frozen in icebergs and subdued in amber
I pray for a booby trap to drop a boulder on me or shoot me with poison tipped arrows
Instead I sit and watch the ice thaw
Instead I wear the sticky resin around my neck as a reminder 

I use my hands to dig
I erode the lines that separate my sense of self from the fourth dimension
I till at barren soil until I am pale
I hear the sound the planet makes as it rotates about its axis
I reach the mantle and stop just before I hit the core
Grief emanates outwards and repels me back, 
like magnets too alike to touch

I use my hands, sparingly,
rescuing shards of memory before the decay sets in;
Bestowing preservation as a gift
White gloved, lest the oil seep through
My skins biology enough to soil
A disturbance by default,
the day arms and legs sprouted inside the womb

I place a shroud around it and worship the silhouette
An eternity of failed attempts at immortality, now memorialized, etched into bronze
Unveiling an inability to persist no matter how deep we dig
Granting shape to whispers of resurrection all the same

Is memory enough to hold impermanence at bay?
If I preserve it well enough,
mummify the feeling,
can I reach back through the veil and pull myself through?

What I’m asking is, can I be remembered to infinity? 
What’s the limit? Until the sun implodes?
Can I conjure reincarnation through the relics I leave behind? 
When they dredge up my bones, will they find my despair in the marrow? 
What parts of me will be left floating through the dust?

I use my bones to dig
I open my skull and pull out the pieces that resemble vulnerability
I tie my ribs into a neat little bow over the front of my heart to frame the resentment growing there
I interlace my hands above my head and stretch until my carcass unravels
I run until my legs collapse 

I am an archaeologist
I use my hands to dig until I unearth something shaped like return