Your supposed to feel fear, or at the very least a sense of foreboding when approaching a graveyard. Death meant to send a shiver up your spine, chilling you as if it were a cold winter day. That is what they say at any rate, can’t say I’ve ever experienced it myself. I’ve always felt a greater sense of belonging, calm that puts my body at ease rather than a heightened state of being. Perhaps when you’ve seen as much death as I have, you grow used to it.

Steel gates hung open, words cemetery hanging above in rusty lettering. When a place lacked a name you knew it was the lowest of quality. You’d never shop at a store simply named shop, yet, with the burial of our dead, did names truly matter? Did the quality matter at all? I felt like the answer was no, but then again I never saw the fascination with fancy headstones. The person was already dead and gone, what the fuck did they care what sort of marker they had?

Everyone called that heartless, lacking some sort of respect for the dead. In my eyes it was just being practical. I didn’t like throwing money around as if I were rich, fuck, even if I was I’d save that shit, put it in a bank or something. Whatever it is you were supposed to do when you were an adult, diversifying my bonds or some shit.

Markers lined the ground, ten per row followed by a small pathway parting another row of ten. Rinse and repeat for another six or seven rows. It was as you’d expect for a place as cheap as this, small and compact without a groundskeeper in sight. Grass overflowed on many a grave, weeds and vines curling around even the most sparkling of marble slabs. Some graves even lacked a marker, shabby wood long since losing it’s battle with the overgrowth.

Families had no reason to complain. If they wanted the gravestone to look good, they could get out there with some hedge clippers and prune that shit themselves. They knew what they were getting when they went the cheap route. Hell, even if they wanted to complain, there wasn’t no one that was going to listen. Graveyard was run by your typical slime ball goblin. Little green skin midgets only cared about pulling bank, inputting the least amount of their own funds as possible. Cheap didn’t even begin to describe them.

Toe of my boot kicked aside a round pebble stone, rock striking the side of a sandstone marker, chipping a corner. Smirk drew over my face as I walked past. If it were up to me I’d of shut this entire place down by now. Better yet, burn it down to ash, cemetery turned crematorium. Those flames would smell so righteous as if memories themselves were simmering away right before my eyes, just as it should be.

People too often clung to the past, unable to let others go. Sure, those people would cry grief and state what an impact so and so had on their lives. I won’t even dispute that fact, some people certainly have a great influence over who you are. That said, they were fucking dead. Remembering them didn’t keep their spirit alive, nor did it honor them. It just kept you stuck in the past instead of looking forward as you should.

It’s why depression was such a joke. Oh no my feelings are hurt. Poor me, someone rejected me. My personal favorite was always the true love bullshit, where they couldn’t possibly live on without them. Like seriously? How stupid can you be to place your whole self worth and being on the existence of another person? I don’t care how good they make you feel, if you lose your sense of self, your an idiot and in a unhealthy relationship.

I came to a stop in front of the third grave on the fifth row, vines weaving in and out of the water damaged wood of the marker. All of the writing on it had faded away, now looking no more than the wood you’d see in the walls of a dive bar, just inviting a colony of mold over to take up residence. I bet it was a regular fucking party in there.

My head tilted downward, hands tucking into my hoodies pockets. “Your a testament to that, aren’t you?”

“Don’t speak, just listen, something I know you never did when you were alive. Too busy running around and serving anyone who would give you the time of day. You were always so desperate for attention, craving it more than addicts did a fix.” My head shook, sigh escaping my lips.

“I don’t even know why I keep coming back here. Every fucking year like clockwork I’m here, bitching and moaning to you like I’m some sort of child. I guess I need to catch up on lost time you know? Never got to be much of a child around you did I?” I laughed, pulling out a pack of smokes from my pocket, smacking the side of the package against my leg. “Oh you made sure I wasn’t that for long.”

“You know how much that would of fucked up the weak little shits that run around the city now? Types that act like a fucking line for coffee is the worst thing in the god damn world, heaven forbid they need to wait for their precious caffeine.” Thumb flipped open the top of the package. “Fucking cunts.”

Thumb worked over the top of the slender cylinder that would soon be my source of nicotine, small crushed leaves scrapping against my skin. Two fingers plucked it from the package, sliding to the corner of my lips. “You’ll be happy to know smoking runs in the family now.”

Other hand dug my lighter free, coiled snake adorning the side of the metallic Zippo. Snapping my wrist forward allowed the flame the freedom it needed, engulfing the end of my cancer stick. Taking a deep breath inward I savored the taste as smoke pulled down my throat and into my lungs, settling their a moment before it backtracked, pushing out of my mouth in a cloud of fumes that could be misinterpreted as a signal.

“Isn’t why I’m here, nah, I wouldn’t waste my time coming all the way out here for that. We both knew it was just a matter of time anyway. You get around this shit long enough and you just assimilate it into your own lifestyle. Kids mimic their parents, think that’s what they say?” I cackled, flicking some ash towards the ground. “My life is about to turn back to shit if that’s the case.”

“You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?” I took another long pull inward, letting the smoke rush through my nose this time. “Would vindicate you of all the shit I said, make me the biggest hypocrite in the world.”

I bent to a crouch position, leveling my vision with the grave. “That’s never going to happen. I’m never going to be like you.”

“I got dreams, big fucking dreams and you know what? It’s only a matter of time till I reach them. You can laugh it up, tell me that people like us aren’t meant to be nothing. That we should just be happy to get by.” I took in one final drag, ash of the cigarette growing longer than the filter.

Smoke blew towards the grave. “I say fuck that. If your only getting by, your not living.”

I leaned forward, putting my cigarette out on the wood. “I came by to tell you this is the last time your going to see me. This time next year, your going to look up at what I’ve become and wish you weren’t such a failure.”