numbers&tides&rooms

We are past the time of counting months.

2 years.

24 months.

104 weeks.

730 days.

2 years.

I still think of him everyday, but it is not the same. It is now in brief memories rather than great sadness.

The sadness comes in buckets but only so often—it’s as if I build sandcastles out of my joy, my life, my moving on, and the tide wipes them down to thick, bumpy dirt.

Funny how the sad is so timely as the tide.

Our life molded around rooms,

whichever had a television and a chair and a light

for when it got dark and a flashlight

for when the power went out, and the storms

knocked out the satellite.

And there was the room in the basement,

musty and dark, even with a light,

because there were no windows,

and there were no games or toys:

just us and some bar stools

and a fireplace that hadn’t been lit

since 1973 when the avocado shag

was hip and clean and intact.

And there was the room with the puppies:

the garage that held everything

but cars. And the newspapers on the cement

slid under scratchy little paws,

crusted in yellow and scent-stained

to match their bums and the fur between their toes,

and, thank god, you never had to see

Mama Pup get old and sick.

But there was the room at your grandma’s house

with the small closet

that barely fit us both, but we went in anyways

and I laughed at how funny you looked,

and we went outside and smoked

tree-twig cigarettes

and put them out

in tree-trunk ashtrays.

There was the room at my house

where we sang “I Got You, Babe,”

and Sonny never sounded so terrible

because you never hit a single note,

and Cher couldn’t stop laughing,

but we were both silent

the instant the door would open

--our fun was our own.

And there was the room at state school

where you broke the rules,

and I got my first taste

of adulthood because I drove three hours to see you.

And it was worth it. And you were happy there.

And I was jealous that you could be happy

somewhere without me.

And then you got sick.

And we weren’t in familiar rooms

in our familiar places of ‘home.’

And we didn’t sing Cher.

And I smoked real cigarettes.

And there weren’t any puppies or barstools,

but we had the television, flickering

a reflection in the window.

And there was the room in the hospital

where you had no voice, and everything

was white except the veins in your eyes

and the silvery drip from the IV,

and I laid on your bed, and I didn’t listen

when the nurse told me not to.

And there was the room in the other hospital

where we watched movies

until the nurse gave your medicine to sleep,

but you were awake when we heard

the uninterrupted beep next door,

and the woman wailing, even though visiting hours

were long over. The nurse shut your door

when they pulled the gurney into the hall,

but I watched through the blinds.

And there was the room in the other other hospital

where I heard your uninterrupted beep,

and I left before they wheeled you away,

but I remember the sun felt different

when I walked outside,

as if bad things couldn’t happen on a sunny day.

But they do.

And there was the room in the building without a name

where it smelled like warm hospitals and stale  roses,

and they put make-up on your face and hands

and made us stand next to you for hours

and watch everyone cry,

but it only made me cry harder,

and it only made you get colder.

Then they closed the lid.

And there were no more rooms.