Sleeping Kate -Extended Version-

-I love the simplicity of the old one. But this extended version is special, I think...- Caskets unmade Naked bodies sprawled in waste Yellow, white and pale brown skins all in one Emaciated fear lingering in the pale eyes Spines tingle at the crunch of excessive skeletons Grimy boots unmercifully stomp Nostrils used to the stench Ready or not, embracing the ash Afraid to express Afraid to breathe Unable to stop the grief Colder eyes than the dead themselves look on They are bored, it seems Untainted by the sound of groans Unmoved by the crack of weak spines Spineless themselves, these guards even smile Frozen, blue eyes iced with a sneer Black, demonic pupils steadied overtime The corpses reflected in their transparent gloss Teeth grind A young boy picks up a dried hip bone Small, calloused fingers clutch the last of his father The eternal frowned mouth is caked with drool, tears and muck Hair whitened as if ghosts have stolen his youth This bone is jagged and worn Once used by force as a bowl for his insect-infested meal Shakily given to Her—the last She would eat Before the officials watched Her slowly starve Today the bone will be used as a shovel—his final labor Last effort for closure The boy knows they are all looking Both the enemy and the oppressed unified All experiencing, all watching He simply knows that overtime, Tears of hope will decompose the hardest of hearts And the boy drives his shovel into the hard ground Pounding away at the chilled, blood-stained soil Drowning out the groans with his own cries Flooding the dryness with his sorrows Breaking up the surface to bury Sleeping Kate Sleeping Kate showed the officers The skeleton she built out of bone fragments Sleeping Kate told them we were all the same inside With this truth, she died With their guilt, they continued life They tried. . . The officers tried to bury Sleeping Kate But Sleeping Kate is always alive, Building skeletons in their minds. . .