Nocturnal Animals
The funny thing about the night-time
Is that nothing is truly real.
The consequences that daylight brings
Are dissolved in the shadows,
And the darkness might just be a dream.
When we wake up in the woods
We’ve already been walking
For a long time - our feet are bare
And covered in mud because
You told me ghosts don’t need shoes.
But we’re not dead yet, I sigh,
Half complaining because I’m so tired.
Can we just rest for five minutes?
I keep tripping over branches and
Losing sight of you up ahead.
Slow down, won’t you, and wait for me.
I can hear the cars on a road nearby,
And do I really want to know
Who’s driving at such a late hour,
And where they’re bound to end up?
You tell me we’re almost there
As an owl hoots overhead like a sign
Of something terrible about to happen.
Perhaps a monster stalking us or a
Pair of cruel hands outstretched, waiting.
When we leave the forest we escape
The cover that the trees provided
And we see that the road runs by,
Illuminated by a watchful silver moon
That counts the cars as they pass.
You and I are destined to be roadkill
And there’s something thrilling
About dying like an animal;
Afraid and confused and in pain,
Bleeding out in the breakdown lane.
We’ve got to dig ourselves a grave
But there’s only one shovel and
Even though we take turns,
My feet are cut and bleeding
From stepping on the sharp metal.
At least we can both agree that
Six feet is an arbitrary number,
And we’re too cold and tired
To want anything other than
A hole to curl up and die in.
I’ll climb in first and make myself
Comfortable, after all, I’ll be lying
this way forever and I don’t
Want to have regrets, or worse -
Pins and needles in my skeleton.
I’ll wait with open arms for you
To join me and then we can start
Pulling the earth in down around us,
Packing it tight like a parent tucks
The bedsheets around their child.
We can sleep now, finally.
The noise of the cars will be reduced to
Distant rumblings and the owls will
Fly back to their nests and dream
About the lovers who went home.
Posted Feb 24, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC
So, I'm a little bit tired but as I understand it, the speaker is neither dead nor alive...possibly in a dream or dreamlike state where they're monologuing their thoughts on death after the loss of someone they loved that they're trying to follow. There also seems to have a little bit of Covid text mixed in there with the "six feet is an arbitrary number" but I can't fit it in more with the poem other than it's about someone's passing, possibly from Covid.
Your first few lines confuse me:
Being Nocturnal Animals, which is what I assume the speaker and the other person is personified as, this to me means that nothing that is said is to be taken as real but rather all hypothetical on what would happen at the death of someone.
The second set of lines that confused me
So, there's a lot of talk about roadkill so I somewhat understand the sharp metal vibe that is generally found on the side of roadways. The animals are digging that up for graves. What I don't understand is the shovel reference.
Anyways, I really liked the flow of the poem! There's a lot going on with the story being told. It has a lot more than I'm able to take in right now in my exhaustion but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.