Memory Corpses

Every star you’ve ever seen is dead.

Everyone you’ve ever known
is trapped between a dead skeleton
and dead outsides

Your dead ancestors
thin and delicate
cling to memories
warm enough to hold them

They slip inward and outward
until they begin to hollow
themselves out
shedding everything that once
made them alive

Your mind is a mausoleum
of memory corpses.

The dead do not stay still here.