Encouragement

I walk up to the tombstone and give it a kick.

Nothing.

Two more kicks.

A hand shoots from the dirt,

withered and crawling with maggots,

it lands on the patch beside me,

a dilapidated head follows, eyes sunken, skin crusted,

only one ear as the other has been eaten away.

What? shout the fragments of a human being,

I was sleeping!

“Grandpa,” I begin,

“I’m writing this book,

I’m doubting myself.

I don’t know if I can finish it

or if it even makes sense.”

This is what you woke me up for?

He coughs up an earth worm and some grime.

Of course you can finish it.

Next time you wake me up for something so stupid,

I’ll come kick the crap out of you.

“Alright,” I say.

“That’s all I needed to hear. I’ll wake you up when it’s finished.”

Wake me up when it’s published, I ain’t going anywhere.

“What if it doesn’t get published?”

Get it fucking published.

He slips back into the ground,

dirt filling in the void left behind.

As I leave I pass the guard,

“You all good? I’m locking up here.”

“All good,” I say.