Buried Alive

When your abuser dies before you get answers you are left on your knees digging.
Broken fingernails from unearthing dirt but there is no treasure underground, just him.
I keep digging for answers knowing there are none that will ever make sense.
Just dirt and broken and the ugliest pieces of me flipping through papers in my mom’s filing cabinet.
It doesn’t matter what the answer is, the question is still locked inside
a three year olds body.
A six year olds body.
An eight year olds body.
The three of us sitting around the dinner table as adults not asking, not answering, just thinking about the headstone that binds us and the man under it
who never asked either.