I Have Only Dreamed You Dead, For Now.

I am only supposed to write a book when my child is dead. When I break down the door and find you next to a mattress but not on it, because you were sitting on the edge when you wrapped the tie around your upper arm—you wouldn’t be able to do that lying down, not when the veins have finally gone slack.  

I know that when I find you, what little effort you have left will have been put into this; you will have leaned forward, feet on the ground, and you won’t necessarily use your teeth the way they do in the movies, all dramatic, because you have gotten good at this, you just have to pull the shoelace tight. And then. Then you get to the good part, well it’s just the necessary part now, the part that has defined your days for a decade, they call it a habit but what a stupid word that is when it has become as necessary as breathing, if breathing were a choice. But then it is done and you will nod forward and roll, a slow roll, nothing like the energetic and wide-splayed somersault of your youth but a decelerated forward roll like an improv actor across a dusty stage, a sideways tuck and bob, a micro-speed crumpling until you have reached the urine-soaked floor. You won’t feel the hard boards on your fragile ribs or the awkward angle of your head because you didn’t know you were arcing it to capture your last breath, these movements were autonomous, the need for more oxygen so primary that your body displays its last efforts for me—it tried, it tried, it tried. What I will see is an undeniable imprint of your last moments like a fossil in a blue stone, a pressing of your once flush flesh against the hard oak floor. But no, your cheek was no longer pink (in all truth the pinkness left years ago) if not for the MAC powder blush. Your baby soft hair, well that would never leave an impression, but the roundness of your skull would. A perfect orb of a baby head that I refused to put flowered clips in, it needed nothing, the blonde wisps a perfect crown. Your thigh bone, never long, now seemingly reduced in size, but a bent paperclip discarded upon the ground, but even a femur has weight, it would leave an impression, it would. But you won’t leave an impression because I will have to call the police and they will send an ambulance and they will take you to the medical examiners where they will strip you and weigh you and tag you and roll you into a dinted metal box in the wall. This is what other mothers’ stories have foretold. All those books on all those shelves about this very day, this very moment. But I always knew, of course I knew.

I know now what I will do. I will drop and crawl and fold you into my lap and I will sing to you. What will I sing to you? “You Are My Sunshine.” Yes. Because you are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Because you make me happy when skies are gray. It’s true that you never knew how much I loved you. Please, I beg, don’t take my sunshine away. And then I will cry, as I am crying now, and I will stop singing because of the tears but also because I will feel badly that you may think I am blaming you for leaving me, your spirit could still be in the room skimming along the ceiling boards, hovering for some sort of eternal relief and this will not help. This keening and breaking inside of me will not help.  I can hear you clearly now, telling me, reminding me, shouting at me; this isn’t about you, it’s about me. I will not be able to take another deep breath to start another song, which is good because I will not be able to think of one. I will only be able to think of your fat little fingers and how you would flex them when singing. How in elementary school you would furrow your brow while concentrating on the lyrics, how you tried to get them just right for you, for me, for the teacher. Stop, I will make myself stop, I can hear your deep laugh telling me to just be quiet for one minute. I will return to you. I will concentrate on holding you because this will be the last time, and it has also been a very long time. I will stroke your neck because it has always been so pale and lovely and I will pull you closer into my lap, I will try to warm you with my blood and I know I will begin to cry again. I will study the small whorl of your ear and the cheap hoops that you will be wearing. I will take them out. I will throw them into the corner, no I will put them in my pocket because when this day comes what else will I have left?