02/04/23

I feel sick. Nauseous with grief. Is that a thing?

That feeling that I’m in the wrong universe, it’s pulsing through my veins. A more sinister déjà vu.

I feel trapped. Like I’ve been buried alive somewhere I don’t belong. A few things look the same, but mostly, it’s all distorted.

I would like to stay asleep. It’s exhausting, this being awake business. This life without you business. When I sleep, sometimes you’re there. Hours that feel far more real, make much more sense, than anything that’s happening here. 

I’m alone in my apartment, staring at the wall. It’s 3pm and I’m still in my pajamas because I’ve yet to make peace with consciousness.

If it was a Saturday and I didn’t have plans, I would come visit you. My head in your lap, we’d watch some show. You would heat up your favorite pizza using the barely functioning broiler, allowing me to devour your forgotten crusts. I seldom had Saturday plans, if we’re being honest (which we always were) because I knew I could spend them with you.

Where did you go, Mom?

Tonight there will be a birthday party for one of your most beloved humans. A birthday party you didn’t throw. A birthday party without you. You loved birthdays. You made them magical.

It’s all different now. It’s all broken.

Usually we’d go together. You’d help me with my hair, my makeup (we never wore makeup, but birthdays broke all sorts of rules). You’d lend me one of your coats, one that would shield me from the frost without destroying my look. We’d get there early to take pictures. Every detail would be perfect, your artistry on full display.

I don’t know what awaits me tonight, but I do know it will be sad.

So much of life is sad now.

Your death was a mistake, an aberration, a schism in the universe, and I’d just like to go back and fix it please.

Months will turn into years will turn into decades and I don’t want any of it.

My home is no longer my home. my life is no longer my life. Your life has been tossed into an urn I think you would like but has no business housing you. I’m reading what is perhaps the last book you ever read. A bill from that dreadful doctor, the one who kept insisting this was TB, was tucked inside. On page 46, one of your hairs. We tossed the bill, will forever preserve the hair.

I’d like to place the book in a glass box, to frame the thick strand of ebony.

How did I ever take anything that had even the slightest bit to do with you for granted?