After You Died...
Is it bad that all I could think about was how beautiful he was?
We talked about being dead, dying a lot. He promised to show me his family's 'slice of boneyard', that I would like it so much with the birds and trees and old, old graves with old, old widows that still come every Sunday. We discussed a cozy tomb built for two, and we laughed.
I always wondered if he knew he was dying. He wouldn't have been afraid, maybe unprepared, but not afraid. He didn't feel like himself when he was lying there...too soft, too motionless. But God, he was so beautiful. Always a little on the slim side, and now his body eating itself from the inside out in an attempt to survive pulled his skin close against his bones... His eyes looked so big and hollow, his eyelashes longer.
His mother cut his hair. I hate her for that. She took his pretty black and red locks and hacked them off like she was cutting back weeds. I had no words when I saw the remnants on his pillow, just stood there dumb as she and the nurse changed his bedding, whisking it all away. I was speechless a lot.
I know they asked me things, but I didn't have answers. I don't know what they wanted. I just put my head on the very edge of that tiny bed and slept with his hand resting over my ear. I could block out anything, the tirades about I didn't belong there, the click of the machine that made his filled his lungs, his wet breathing.
Afterward, his mother threw herself on him. Shameless whore! I thought. You did this, you gave him up! He ran away from you! Not me. I knew he would love, absolutely love what was coming next. I was eager for them to cut his pretty white skin open, measure and weigh all the jigsaw pieces of him. I knew he was somewhere, laughing hysterically: "I TOLD you I had a fat spleen! I told you!" The pretty-shiny instruments, the sterile room, it would have been everything he could have wanted.
The fighting started afterward. I let them be in peace until I heard that they wanted to burn him up, turn his perfect bones into ashes. He didn't want to be a pile of dust in a pretty vase, surrounded by people he didn't know--he wanted to be buried, close and snug in a box under the dirt, warm, wet, safe! I'm sure they thought I had lost it, gone completely around the bend when I tried to explain that to them. His brother smiled sadly at me. He knew. He understood. At least when I died, when I was put in the ground, we would be under the dirt together.
She was so dramatic, falling into any arms that would catch her. I had no one. I stood as the priest said hollow words in a language I didn't understand (because I didn't belong there), off to the side, holding the hand of a solemn little boy with big, serious eyes. No one said anything to me, I don't even think they noticed, given that his mother was keening like a banshee as they sealed him up in a little drawer. Just a drawer.
Did they check to see that he was dead before they turned the furnace on?
We talked about being dead, dying a lot. He promised to show me his family's 'slice of boneyard', that I would like it so much with the birds and trees and old, old graves with old, old widows that still come every Sunday. We discussed a cozy tomb built for two, and we laughed.
I always wondered if he knew he was dying. He wouldn't have been afraid, maybe unprepared, but not afraid. He didn't feel like himself when he was lying there...too soft, too motionless. But God, he was so beautiful. Always a little on the slim side, and now his body eating itself from the inside out in an attempt to survive pulled his skin close against his bones... His eyes looked so big and hollow, his eyelashes longer.
His mother cut his hair. I hate her for that. She took his pretty black and red locks and hacked them off like she was cutting back weeds. I had no words when I saw the remnants on his pillow, just stood there dumb as she and the nurse changed his bedding, whisking it all away. I was speechless a lot.
I know they asked me things, but I didn't have answers. I don't know what they wanted. I just put my head on the very edge of that tiny bed and slept with his hand resting over my ear. I could block out anything, the tirades about I didn't belong there, the click of the machine that made his filled his lungs, his wet breathing.
Afterward, his mother threw herself on him. Shameless whore! I thought. You did this, you gave him up! He ran away from you! Not me. I knew he would love, absolutely love what was coming next. I was eager for them to cut his pretty white skin open, measure and weigh all the jigsaw pieces of him. I knew he was somewhere, laughing hysterically: "I TOLD you I had a fat spleen! I told you!" The pretty-shiny instruments, the sterile room, it would have been everything he could have wanted.
The fighting started afterward. I let them be in peace until I heard that they wanted to burn him up, turn his perfect bones into ashes. He didn't want to be a pile of dust in a pretty vase, surrounded by people he didn't know--he wanted to be buried, close and snug in a box under the dirt, warm, wet, safe! I'm sure they thought I had lost it, gone completely around the bend when I tried to explain that to them. His brother smiled sadly at me. He knew. He understood. At least when I died, when I was put in the ground, we would be under the dirt together.
She was so dramatic, falling into any arms that would catch her. I had no one. I stood as the priest said hollow words in a language I didn't understand (because I didn't belong there), off to the side, holding the hand of a solemn little boy with big, serious eyes. No one said anything to me, I don't even think they noticed, given that his mother was keening like a banshee as they sealed him up in a little drawer. Just a drawer.
Did they check to see that he was dead before they turned the furnace on?