I used to follow the hard steps of my father.

In the garden full of Onion sprouts and blooming yellow tulips

My mother once told me “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,”
and
my father once told me to “life is for the living”

And I never understood what they meant until they died.

The bees continued to buzz around my mother’s garden, despite my best attempts to shoo them.

And at my fathers funeral
He was no longer one of the living.

I cried and I hid it
His voice played in my head and

I walked two miles
Into the red, dusty desert
And laid down once I was too far away.

I stretched out until
My hands touched ancient pebbles
As far as they could sprawl.

The sky looked blue.
The clouds looked off—white

But-peace I finally
Felt

And it was
As calm as these desert rocks.

I stood up and started to walk home.