Five years after your daughter’s death, you still cry in the juniors section of department stores.
You preserve her bedroom like a taxidermist. Her unworn prom dress still hangs like a skinned mermaid in her closet.
Cancer entered your home like a greedy tenant, drew himself into family portraits, slept in your daughter’s bed, swallowed all her blood cells.
It started with a headache. A fever, your daughter melting like a popsicle. It took you a week to tell your husband about the blood in the toilet.
Sometimes, you wonder if you never caught it, could you have lived as if it was never there?
As if saying that word instantly drapes a shroud over your house. Would it still have slept like cremation in her bed?
The doctors spoke to you in time lines, as your daughter’s weight dropped like a count down, a surprise party no one wanted to throw.
Once, when she was in the other room, her blood being read like tea leaves, the doctor suggested not to bother with college applications.
You couldn’t bring yourself to tell her. You couldn’t bring yourself to say it. Sometimes you think she knew, as she methodically filled out each question and box, it was never for her.
There is still a stack of unsent applications hidden like tumor in your dresser. She kissed every envelope goodbye. You couldn’t bear to send more of her away.
When she passed, quietly like a note to God, all you wanted was to swaddle her in your arms like an infant, bring her home from the hospital, fragile and new. Breastfeed her back to life, potty train and finger paint, reteach her the alphabet, retrace her first steps back to you.
To lose a child is like giving birth in reverse. It is slow and it rips, planting a permanent lump in your throat.
When chemotherapy pulled out the last of her hair, you started carrying her baby teeth in your pocket: A reminder things can grow back.
Five years after your daughter’s death,
you still cry in the juniors section of department stores.
You preserve her bedroom like a taxidermist.
Her unworn prom dress still hangs
like a skinned mermaid in her closet.
Cancer entered your home like a greedy tenant,
drew himself into family portraits,
slept in your daughter’s bed,
swallowed all her blood cells.
It started with a headache. A fever,
your daughter melting like a popsicle.
It took you a week to tell your husband
about the blood in the toilet.
Sometimes, you wonder
if you never caught it,
could you have lived
as if it was never there?
As if saying that word instantly
drapes a shroud over your house.
Would it still have slept
like cremation in her bed?
The doctors spoke to you in time lines,
as your daughter’s weight dropped like a count down,
a surprise party no one wanted to throw.
Once, when she was in the other room,
her blood being read like tea leaves,
the doctor suggested not to bother with college applications.
You couldn’t bring yourself to tell her.
You couldn’t bring yourself to say it.
Sometimes you think she knew,
as she methodically filled out each question and box,
it was never for her.
There is still a stack of unsent applications
hidden like tumor in your dresser.
She kissed every envelope goodbye.
You couldn’t bear to send more of her away.
When she passed,
quietly like a note to God,
all you wanted was to swaddle her
in your arms like an infant, bring her home
from the hospital, fragile and new.
Breastfeed her back to life,
potty train and finger paint,
reteach her the alphabet,
retrace her first steps
back to you.
To lose a child is like giving birth in reverse.
It is slow and it rips, planting a permanent lump
in your throat.
When chemotherapy pulled out
the last of her hair, you started carrying
her baby teeth in your pocket: A reminder
things can grow back.
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