I don’t think most people realize
what it means to stiffly walk away.   

But many people
are forced out by society,
ostracized by families,
threatened by small towns
b/c they aren’t normal.
They aren’t like the living.  

Thanksgiving is the reminder
that you don’t belong, or,
If you’re like me, you just think,
fuck Kenny. I don’t wanna sit
across from Kenny again.
I don’t need to hear Stevie
opine about faggotry.
I do not need to sit by my Dad
again, silently, in omission.  

And so I refused. I walked
away from them. Stiff-jointed
as if I’d been stabbed
between the shoulder blades
b/c I was transformed by the world
they made. I rose up. Ambled on,
refusing to belong.  

Being a zombie is about being
human, and also about leaving
humanity altogether.  

To belong by being the abject
other, departing while remaining
an object of fascination.  

For me it was liberating and terrible
to stumble away. And simply refuse.

I share this with Bri and he is silent. 
I imagine him taking all of this in for the first time.
That he wil be profound, profess a deep love I have 
never known. 
Then a fiew minutes later he says 
“Do we have any cheese?”