Didn't you hear?
That little girl that you knew who would nuzzle
her head into your neck and give you little
butterfly kisses along your cheeks? That girl who
painted pictures of heaven and taped them to the refrigerator doors
so that everyone could see? The little girl who cried in your arms as you,
weak from labor, pressed her to your breasts and
stroked the membrane-soaked hair from her unopened eyes?
Yeah, she killed herself today. Shot her face off.
Said the world didn't understand, said that she didn't understand
why pain was so real and encompassing. She said that
it wasn't anybody's fault, she just had too many bad days and she couldn't
take it anymore. And foul play was ruled out. The note was written in the
handwriting we took from your mother's day card that said how much she
loved you and how much she appreciated that you were always there, even when
you yelled and cried and screamed in frustration as you watched the
bloody wads of tissues pile up in the trash and your vodka and
prescription drugs disappear from your cabinets. She even loved you
when you hid the razors and flushed the drugs, though she screamed and cried and
cut herself with kitchen knives, deeper, deeper.
And she couldn't stand to hear you cry in your room, late at night when you thought
no one was there. Because she knew you were stroking your cheeks,
imagining her kisses lining your face, and she
couldn't do that anymore. That was why she ripped up all the pictures
taped to the refrigerator doors and fell to her knees, crying,
as heaven lay shredded at her feet. That's why she stole the gun.
That's why she's dead.
And here are the things left in her pockets -- chapstick, two dollars and
thirty-four cents, hair pins, the lip gloss she always liked, a coupon to her favorite
sandwich shop, and a phone number to that boy she liked that liked her back
but she was too afraid to call. Right now, he is in his room, crying his eyes out.
But you cannot stop. There are funeral arrangements to be made
about the size of the coffin, the lettering of the gravestones,
and the flowers that you will never be able to smell again.
You'll need to talk with people, and they will want to talk and every explanation
will relive the horror once more as you hold your arms around your chest,
remembering once that you pressed her there and loved her and that
you will never see her again.
And maybe when you get home, you can pick up the pieces of the papers,
still left on the kitchen floor, and brush them against your tears as you pray that
heaven is a real place and death is only fleeting.
Points: 3181
Reviews: 131
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