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Fake Queens.

Women laughing as crowns are placed on their heads, unaware of what those titles once meant.

I feel every footstep through the soil.

Every drunken laugh.

Every plate emptied.

Every glass raised.

Every body tangled with another in the dark.

Pleasure.

Fear.

Pain.

Blood.

Life.

All of it sinking into the land.

Feeding something that never stopped being hungry.

Growing.

Waiting.

And beneath every fucking year of it is Mercy.

She hears them.

Feels them.

While seasons pass over her grave that isn’t a grave.

She screams until she has no voice left, and when her voice returns, she screams again.

No one hears her. No one ever fucking hears her.

I tear my hand away.

The barn crashes back around me.

I hit my knees, choking on a sob.

Mercy is crying too.

Real tears slide down a face that should no longer be capable of making them.

“Please.”

Her hands close around my face.

I look at her.