Brown Bird VIII

The world should have stopped…but it didn’t. The world kept turning, Spanish moss kept blowing in the trees, Ricky the parking attendant still sat at her station dolling out parking passes and citations, Mo—still sat at the counter of the bookstore slowly turning pages of her latest horror novel, Crysta still and dipped her mags into fresh thimbles for more True Blue ink, and Jimmy upstairs sat in his folding chair lighting a freshly unwrapped Swisher just for a few moments of silence from the screaming children. 

My world stopped. I noticed. Every clock broke, then I broke. I cleaned you up, and sat up with you all night listening to you struggle to breathe. I carried you to the backseat of the car and drove in silence…taking every extra turn I could. I struggled to sleep when after locking the door, I turned around to a bare mattress…and realized for the hundredth time that you were gone—that there was no one to sit with and kiss good night. I’m the one who hallucinated you shuttling around in the night and woke—to remind myself that you…still weren’t here. 

I did what I could and maybe it wasn’t enough, I don’t know. But the world should have noticed. It should’ve noticed that one of God’s gifts slipped away from us without so much as a whimper.

Brown Bird VII

May you finally find the rest that I would not allow you in our final moments.

Sleep peacefully—until we meet again—Little Bird.

—I miss you.

Brown Bird VI

I’ve never been more terrified to wake-up in the morning. To realize you’re really gone.

Brown Bird V

You were so small at the end, and I wanted more than anything to protect you from all this. The mountains of pills, the years of surgery—I fought so fucking hard to win a battle that I knew I was never going to win…just for a handful of extra years…and I would do it again—only for you. I’m so sorry we lost. It was my failing, not yours.

Brown Bird IV

It’s so cold in here without you. It’s just four walls and a bunch of shit I don’t care about. There’s no heartbeat, no tips or taps, and no bumps on the elbows.

Brown Bird III

These waves keep pulling me under. I keep looking for you around every corner. I know you’re not there, but by the time I realize it, I’m drowning again, and it’s too late.

Brown Bird II

You were the only reason I agreed to come here, now I’m left with just the wind in the trees, and a promise of passage.

Little Brown Bird

At 8:17 in the morning on a Tuesday, you went limp in my arms, my heart slamming in my chest, my hands shaking, and all I could smell was earth. I knew you were gone, and yet still—I asked him to check one more time. It didn’t matter that I felt your heart stop, or that I listened to the air leave your lungs. I’ve never screamed like that before. I’ve never felt the need to do it more than once, and still need to again, and have nothing left in my lungs to give—despite trying anyway. At once, a great schism cracked open and bled with no way for me to stop it. I always thought I loved solitude…in reality, I just preferred to be with you. Just you. My home is gone—and I’m left bleeding on the altar—alone. You were everything, and I love you so much.