(no subject)
“neither of them made it. I don’t know any details.”
There was no time to breathe; no time to say, “pull over,”
Because before I could think my head was in my lap
Hand on the door
Heart in my throat!
Never had I grasped the true meaning of
Bursting into tears
It happened without hesitation, no time to think
Because before I could think I was retching out the door
As he pulled to a stop in the parking lot.
You looked so beautiful- that old cliché of ‘sleeping’
I resisted the urge to make a scene, attempting to shake you awake
Standing at the front of the church
Black on black, first funeral of the week
Floodgates of last summer- my last summer home-
This was yours, and where was I? so far away!
I replay, fast forward, replay, pause,
Over and over, your laughter in my head
I am so afraid of forgetting your laugh.
It seems temporary.
There is no way you will still be dead a year from now.
It seems impossible to think you will
Never turn nineteen.
I recall the night you two picked me up
Monotonous insults, I was so used to
It is downright impossible that you two will
Never honk outside my house.
And two days later, I sat in a funeral home
The cemetery outside a sea of dead memories
The room inside awash with his.
‘this one time, at work…’
‘when I texted him, he said…’
he should be here to laugh about
that time in the kitchen, mid argument,
when we started kissing for no reason whatsoever.
It is impossible to comprehend
I sat staring at his casket
Wondering what he looked like inside.
Too many injuries, its good he wanted closed.
Those words do not register
Clinical talk of how her neck snapped
Stilted words of how a car traveling at
Sixty five miles per hour smashed
Directly into his side door.
I do not understand,
My vocabulary does not include the words
Emily and Austin are dead.
My grasp on the English language
Must be lacking.
It must be temporary
He is just ashes now,
But where did all his tenacious energy go?
She is six feet down,
And six hundred miles away
But where did her goofy laugh go?
It must be temporary
I wait for her name to
Appear on my cell phone screen,
I wait for him to tell me this is a joke.
I cannot comprehend the words
“neither of them made it”
crumpled in his truck my ragged sobs
ravaging my body too hard for me to speak.
Dead today, dead tomorrow,
I will not pull down the one way and
Wait outside her house, carefully adjusting the bass
So her parents don’t look at me,
Car pulling away from the curb with
Their daughter, volume high
This I can accept,
Tonight we won’t go drink from pitchers
On the patio, with tourist boys,
And I will not be
Gorging on taco bell in the hot afternoon
Prior to a beach trip, sweating in the sun,
Flip flops and freckles, free ice cream.
She is dead right now. I accept this.
It is the next year, next spring break,
Graduation, twenty first, wedding day,
These are the parts I cannot fathom.
Dead now, okay; but I must still be
Visiting her in California this coming year,
Right?
We must be getting home from school
Around the same time next march,
Right?
She must not always be dead.
She will always be dead.
He will always be dead.
Its not temporary.
There was no time to breathe; no time to say, “pull over,”
Because before I could think my head was in my lap
Hand on the door
Heart in my throat!
Never had I grasped the true meaning of
Bursting into tears
It happened without hesitation, no time to think
Because before I could think I was retching out the door
As he pulled to a stop in the parking lot.
You looked so beautiful- that old cliché of ‘sleeping’
I resisted the urge to make a scene, attempting to shake you awake
Standing at the front of the church
Black on black, first funeral of the week
Floodgates of last summer- my last summer home-
This was yours, and where was I? so far away!
I replay, fast forward, replay, pause,
Over and over, your laughter in my head
I am so afraid of forgetting your laugh.
It seems temporary.
There is no way you will still be dead a year from now.
It seems impossible to think you will
Never turn nineteen.
I recall the night you two picked me up
Monotonous insults, I was so used to
It is downright impossible that you two will
Never honk outside my house.
And two days later, I sat in a funeral home
The cemetery outside a sea of dead memories
The room inside awash with his.
‘this one time, at work…’
‘when I texted him, he said…’
he should be here to laugh about
that time in the kitchen, mid argument,
when we started kissing for no reason whatsoever.
It is impossible to comprehend
I sat staring at his casket
Wondering what he looked like inside.
Too many injuries, its good he wanted closed.
Those words do not register
Clinical talk of how her neck snapped
Stilted words of how a car traveling at
Sixty five miles per hour smashed
Directly into his side door.
I do not understand,
My vocabulary does not include the words
Emily and Austin are dead.
My grasp on the English language
Must be lacking.
It must be temporary
He is just ashes now,
But where did all his tenacious energy go?
She is six feet down,
And six hundred miles away
But where did her goofy laugh go?
It must be temporary
I wait for her name to
Appear on my cell phone screen,
I wait for him to tell me this is a joke.
I cannot comprehend the words
“neither of them made it”
crumpled in his truck my ragged sobs
ravaging my body too hard for me to speak.
Dead today, dead tomorrow,
I will not pull down the one way and
Wait outside her house, carefully adjusting the bass
So her parents don’t look at me,
Car pulling away from the curb with
Their daughter, volume high
This I can accept,
Tonight we won’t go drink from pitchers
On the patio, with tourist boys,
And I will not be
Gorging on taco bell in the hot afternoon
Prior to a beach trip, sweating in the sun,
Flip flops and freckles, free ice cream.
She is dead right now. I accept this.
It is the next year, next spring break,
Graduation, twenty first, wedding day,
These are the parts I cannot fathom.
Dead now, okay; but I must still be
Visiting her in California this coming year,
Right?
We must be getting home from school
Around the same time next march,
Right?
She must not always be dead.
She will always be dead.
He will always be dead.
Its not temporary.