Unheard Address by Someone Now Gone
by Annemarie Bennett
Inspired by Christmas Morning by McNair Evans (2009)
This is the chair I sat in
when I had a body to my name.
That old train passing through the mountains
is such a funny thing.
When I had a body to my name
I was walking by the tracks. It is
such a funny thing to know
I will never get that back.
My body stopped walking on the tracks,
and in a flash, I was in the place called home.
I will never get my body back, and once I
decay, only an imprint of me will be left.
I don’t know how I arrived at this place.
I’ve forgotten my name; maybe the
fungi know. There are only imprints of my
self here. Can I still call this place home?
My name is covered in leaves on the forest floor,
with my body, which I left three sunrises ago.
At home, I played cards at the table by the door, but now
when I touch the cards, my fingers pass through.
I feel every centimeter of my body, my phantom limbs.
I can feel it shudder by the tracks as the train
rumbles its resting. The cards and I are left solitary while
centipedes crawl down my body’s throat.
I will feel my body until my bones turn to dust.
Foxes dig me up from autumn leaves and rip
at broken flesh as a worm meanders into my nose and
morning frost chews at strips of skin like a rabid animal.
Crows peck at muscle and rest on my ribcage,
yet I cannot return to the body I call my own.
There was frost the morning I reaped what I sowed, and
with this new sunrise, I can only feel my bones.
Time passes me differently, and my body hardly remains.
I’ll soon wander with no mind at all. My comfort is the
frost blanketing what’s left, as skeletal leaves cannot
keep an empty corpse warm. Earth, bury my bones.
Soon I will have no mind at all.
It’s nice in this place I think I once knew.
Earth, bury my bones in torrents of mud
and take care that I forget softly.
It’s nice here.
Is anybody listening?
I’ve forgotten, but it seems
I am numb and cold.
Has anyone seen my bones?
They’re by the mountain tracks.
I’m so cold.
This is the
This is the chair I sat in
when I had a body to my name.
That old train passing through the mountains
is such a funny thing.
When I had a body to my name
I was walking by the tracks. It is
such a funny thing to know
I will never get that back.
My body stopped walking on the tracks,
and in a flash, I was in the place called home.
I will never get my body back, and once I
decay, only an imprint of me will be left.
I don’t know how I arrived at this place.
I’ve forgotten my name; maybe the
fungi know. There are only imprints of my
self here. Can I still call this place home?
My name is covered in leaves on the forest floor,
with my body, which I left three sunrises ago.
At home, I played cards at the table by the door, but now
when I touch the cards, my fingers pass through.
I feel every centimeter of my body, my phantom limbs.
I can feel it shudder by the tracks as the train
rumbles its resting. The cards and I are left solitary while
centipedes crawl down my body’s throat.
I will feel my body until my bones turn to dust.
Foxes dig me up from autumn leaves and rip
at broken flesh as a worm meanders into my nose and
morning frost chews at strips of skin like a rabid animal.
Crows peck at muscle and rest on my ribcage,
yet I cannot return to the body I call my own.
There was frost the morning I reaped what I sowed, and
with this new sunrise, I can only feel my bones.
Time passes me differently, and my body hardly remains.
I’ll soon wander with no mind at all. My comfort is the
frost blanketing what’s left, as skeletal leaves cannot
keep an empty corpse warm. Earth, bury my bones.
Soon I will have no mind at all.
It’s nice in this place I think I once knew.
Earth, bury my bones in torrents of mud
and take care that I forget softly.
It’s nice here.
Is anybody listening?
I’ve forgotten, but it seems
I am numb and cold.
Has anyone seen my bones?
They’re by the mountain tracks.
I’m so cold.
This is the
Annemarie Bennett is a Texas-based author. Her writing has appeared in the horror anthology Fish Gather to Listen, Quagmire Magazine, Black Poppy Review, and Aonian magazine. She is also the former editor-in-chief of Aonian magazine. When she isn’t writing somewhat scary stories to tell in relatively dark places, she is with her pets, or collecting shells, crystals, and other miscellaneous tchotchkes.