rocks never die

 when you die
i mean when your earthly body
rattles its resignation speech
to the room

your body's nothing but an oddly shaped vein of
improperly fired carbon
that coulda been a bright shiny diamond
if it didn't take the low road out of town and
marry a commoner for love
too doped up with oxides and phosphates
to be allowed atop a duchy

but you go on living
in those that knew you
all you've lost
is the ability to change what they see
which is all you really are
anyway

but really
one leads to two leads to three
and you've been formed your whole life
by the landscape's largesse
so maybe you never had that ability
from the start
and nothing's changed but your ability
to observe it through your jeweler's loupe
eyes closed to the reference coordinates
wondering why you're spinning

maybe
we really are diamonds
in someone's prized collection
of singularly flawed stones
of misfits and fuckups
one with a streak of yellow phosphorous run through it
next to another dulled by waves of silica dirt
across from some poor bastard would-be shiner
with screw dislocations where his brain should be


and you know
rocks never die