Let me play with the worms

Will anyone remember me in 100 years?

Will they care?

Should I care, If I'm not there to remind them that I was?

Will anyone I pass today, remember me tomorrow?

Should I care what they whisper?

Should I be flattered? To know, that for a moment I mattered?

When my ego is with the worms,

When my name sits on a plaque,

Will they remember what I said?

Still talk behind my back?

Will I have made enough of an impact?

When my ligaments are no longer intact?

We learn of kings and conquerers,

But, will they put my name in new history books?

If my life is online, will I be deleted in time? Erased by a dump of new content, of new egos, having their five minutes to shine.

If no one will remember me in 100 years,

Then let me play with the worms.

Let me give thanks to the souls they've swallowed,

and let them swallow mine.

Take my secrets six feet under, and let people wonder,

for a day, what happened to Ray?

Before the next egg breaks the internet.

Before the keyboard warriors cancel the next celeb

On their daily crusades, righting the world while forgetting Ray.

Let me play with the worms,

Have my heart beat into the grass,

summon them from afar, from their slumber,

to a Hell that rains, snows, rots, and thunders.

Let them swallow my fears, my shame, my worry that I am not living as my truest self,

worried that my truest self died when I was followed into the bathroom at seven years old.

As I watched how the world had wronged us,

how being human did not mean being kind, but cold.

As I learned from my father, that not all of us come with good intentions and time—that souls still get sold.

Take all of this, the Devil's brunch, and feed it to the worms.

Have my heart slow as they know it is time to retreat,

before they are plucked up by the early birds on their morning meet.

Take my lies, my secrets, my deceit,

take my mortgage, my wrinkles, my wisdom teeth, and tired feet.

Scurry it away with you.

Bury it with my childhood.

These things are not meant for this earth.

These things will not be remembered.

Take them to the grave for me.

I'll meet you there.

Warm my bed,

For in 100 years, I'll be cold and dead.

And, will anyone remember me?

Will I live in a blade of grass?

Will I grow into the rough bark of a tree?

Will my worries, and my wrinkles, finally be free?

Tell me, dear worms, what will you do with me?

Who will you tell?

When you have taken my secrets away from this Hell.

Sit in silence with me.

Until another heart beat calls us to the light,

Until we find another soul struggling to determine wrong from right.

Remember them too.

Bring them down, down, and under.

I'll warm the fire, for dear souls cowering from the thunder,

from the pain that pours heavy as rain, and pitta patters on our heads,

reminding us that when we are dead,

and 100 years pass,

our names, our actions, our doing, will not last.

Hear my heart beat, beat, beat, dear worms.

Come and meet me in the grass.