Me's 5th Journal
January thirteenth, 2000
His lips look incredibly thin. Broken, wet. Unsmiling and far too dark, the colour of bruised midnight clouds. His nose curves too sharply like that, and his glasses don't look right. What I see of his body forces me to kneel in prayer at the toilet. I am not Catholic, as was he. Still. My knotted spine is my rosary, and the prayers are sliding out my mouth sour. Maybe a Hail Mary. Stained rolling water, and my tongue is thick with vomit now. Maybe the drain is taking shards of him down with it.
I wash my hands. Also slick with vomit. The acid warm yellow-red is slipping from my hands, but I can't feel it. I dip my fingers in the soap like cleaning solution-blue holy water. I swallow. A clump of it bumps down my throat. I look at myself. My eyes are screaming suicide, and my arm is not assisting in my denial.
More than anything, I think I miss his voice. And his smile. And his eyes. I miss the innocence of elementary school, and being swung by my favourite lunch aid -- and later my adopted grandfather -- even though he wasn't really allowed to.
We weren't even a blood relation. Why do I miss him so much?
The bear I gave him is in the casket. Soft white, with a too-large nose. And the Angel. And a picture. And a silver foil bloom that Jess made and gave to me. All phenomenally stupid things. From me, no less. I feel my face flush. But the only colour in my skin is dead white. I stare at the jungle of veins pulsing just under the flesh. I grit my teeth behind trembling smiles. People I know. Their legs are pumping them away. From me. Yes, I am in oversized jeans and a velvet leopard-print belt and a sweater. I will not suffocate myself in any more formal a garrote that I usually do. I was not in the mood to wear a skirt.
Carol squeezes me into a hug. I pull at the collar of my sweater, and slide the corpse of a smile beneath her eyelids. I go outside, and she doesn't hesitate in following me. The cigarette was already in my hands... "Does your mother know?" Of course she does, the nasty little spy. "Then I can know." Carol, my devout little middle-aged churchgoer of an acquaintance, pulls out a cigar. Okay. I keep my mouth closed, except to jam a cigarette between my lips. We're done. My head hurts. But I've begun to realize just how accepting Carol is.
Prayer, after prayer, after prayer. I am getting sick of prayer. Now I know why I prefer Judaism. A loud, bald deacon with racing lips. Silent people. Then sobs that explode from peoples' faces like grenades. The collective drunken murmur of our thin crowd and a dead man in the front of the room. On display, like a prize to win with all of the lovely trinkets surrounding him. I stay quiet, and try to soothe his former son-in-law. And neighbor. And daughter. And granddaughter.
Home. It is not comfort, but it's something close that I can hide myself in.
He is dead. This makes seven dead people in my life. I know I'm skipping, and I'm sorry if this is vague, but I don't have the patience to try and clear the words up. I have been eating, and throwing up. I don't like it. A lot of toast and tea and mints. I feel swollen with tears, and yet I have not been crying. The same inferno. A funeral, today. Later.
I guess I'm just getting what I deserve.
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