What’s darker than death?
I couldn’t write a poem…
What can possibly be darker than death? — I am set on writing this poem tonight. Lately I seem to manage to express myself through some sort of wannabe poetry, verse, or however my stuff is called, if it even has a name.
And if not, that’s also perfectly fine. We’re too set on defining things, anyway. In any case, I seem to be the * in pretty much all the definitions I can come up with. But I digress.
Death. Worse than death — my imaginarium is digging deep for dark, recently sharpened flesh cutting words to rip through hearts. Or at least through my own. I mean, I must manage to at least make myself cry. Nothing. All my head is able to come up with is ‘the deathest death’. And that’s not even a word. Death sucks and so does my world of words. I reach for beer. That should help. I’m a big drama queen when drunk. And so are my words. No, wine! It’s more appropriate. Wine is serious business. And so is death, they say. I can’t come up with anything. Me and death.. we’re by no means friends but we’ve been known to exchange pleasantries once or twice.
So what’s it’s color? It must be really dark. At least that’s what we’re led to believe. Of course, there’s light at the end of the tunnel and a whole sunny garden in bloom, all white and shiny. But to get there, one has to go through dirt first. Quite literally. Add a little touch of decay, a deep sniff of rotten and a kilo or two of slimy flesh eating worms and you have the recipe for burial. Tradition, they say, Ritual. The burial is symbolic. A celebration of life. The closing of the circle. We’re barbarians! We throw dirt and darkness in the face of the dead. And that’s okay. That’s a body. Bye! But why do I have to witness it? And then think of its colors forever after.
Three wine glasses in and it’s becoming more and more obvious this is not getting any closer to being a poem. Or however it was I was calling my alcohol infused writing. Maybe I should write less. This writing business seems to be bad for the liver. Yet again, I digress.
What’s darker than death? Wine or no wine, together with this question I automatically see some sort of light. Dimmed. Sunlight. But only a little. The window shades are working hard and seem exhausted, but do their job well. They keep most of the sunlight out.
My turn to be with her. It’s a good day. I am lucky. Bed, clean white linen. It smells of softener. Combined with sick. Light daytime TV. We almost even chit chat. We manage to dump a word here and there every two or three sighs. Same few words but that’s irrelevant. The Hallmark channel, her favorite. Not mine but this is about her.
Not such a hot summer, not like last year. Last year it was hot. She was hot. A lot. She wouldn’t be able to handle that now. God helped her to not have to deal with that. God is good. He is probably just away on his holy summer vacation right now. Everybody needs a break from time to time. She can wait.
Suddenly, for some unknown reason, on the commercial break, between bubbles of Coca Cola light, ‘zero calories, stay slim and fit forever and ever’ and the two twin Twix ‘actually enjoy life, fuck staying so slim forever and ever’ chocolate caramel bars, snowflakes start falling all over the screen and an uninvited pine tree smell creeps in the bedroom. I get a sudden urge to have hot chocolate dipped marshmallows. And I can. She, however, can’t.
What the actual hell? Who had the brilliant idea of airing a Christmas movie commercial in the middle of summer? Not a hot summer. But a summer nonetheless. There’s a whole lifetime to go till holiday season. Somebody else’ life, that is. We.. We don’t have any to spare.
She looks at me. It seems she strongly believes what she is showing me is something in the neighborhood of a smile. I think I even manage to catch the small sister of a shine in her eyes of tired hazel.
‘I can’t wait till Christmas!’ she says with a pale shade of excitement.
I look at her. My turn to present her with what I think might pass for the happiest happy smile. Or at least the happiest one that I was able to get a hold of on such short notice. I touch her shrinking hand. It’s cold. Goes well with Christmas, I think to myself.
‘Yes, I know you cannot.’
She smiles. I don’t.
I know this year ends in July.
…..
To my mum. She loved Christmas.
