When the ease of letting go starts to resemble my grandfather’s after he fell, when a broken hip spelled the end for him, when he gave away his clothes and electronics and his home without a second thought, when all he cared about was leaving a pot of money in place of his own heart, here, let this soften the blow of my departure, I worry I should worry. I want for little and the lightness frightens me.
Can I go watch from over there? I want a fuller picture. I want to see the buds sprout light as popcorn on the tree, the miracle of hot pink where absence, cuneiform abstract impressions, the suggestion only of life distinct in shape and yet so brittle would for seasons tremble and break off in the middle of the night. I can’t tell the difference though my skin aches where its shadow doesn’t touch me anymore. But then, the sun doesn’t pass the same way twice and somewhere, a creak in the floor, the kettle, a door breathing open will change my chemistry and when I turn around the light is different. Here are flowers.
Right now I feel my heart in my throat and my left shoulder pinching at the blade. To my left is a couch that’s too big for my house I can’t part with, though I consider it every day, I’m getting closer. I put it back together myself and less and less of me lives in its joints now. I could take it apart and send it off, or fit it through the window. Or I could live with it. It’s just a couch.
My dad’s black scarf. A bedroom. Friends forever. Virginity, some youth. If I could get them back, what else would I lose?
What will happen in an hour? I won’t be here anymore. She will have seen and given up more, succumbed to sugar or frustration or rain or the anticipation of feet on the stairs, what that will do to her, what it’s already doing to her, how the imprint will live in the difference. The tree will look the same as far as she can tell. She can remember, or she cannot. The minutiae. A thousand tons of sand she can walk on or pack up and carry on her back.
The door scrapes the ground before sweeping open and I match its inhale. Life comes back. I forgot it did that.
