I lain in a half-sleep, hearing my grandmother's voice.
When she died, I was jobless,
sleeping on her couch,
and a few months out of the ward.
My mental instability helped me lose friendships, love, and my identity.
I used to hope death would touch me
and I did not know why I wanted it to.
Death instead touched her,
drifting like a gas, underneath her door,
into her lungs, erasing consciousness
like lavender being blown by the wind,
into marked a detergent bottle.
I lain in a half-sleep, hearing my grandmother's voice.
A blue shock spread throughout me,
like the ocean swallowing animals
and forcing them to adapt.
I began drowning in water that looked like gas station slushee,
my ribcage hugging frantic gelatin organs,
beating alongside the spindle of time.
I lain in a half-sleep, hearing my grandmother's voice.
My carcass became Sun-kissed from the burning of change --
my grandmother died before I could succeed:
my grandmother died before she could see me live.
I crawl through the coarse, wheat-dyed sand,
hoping the blood I trail can be measured in her love.
I hope to make her proud, to learn to work hard,
then harder and harder and harder.
To become fully healthy,
to become what she stayed by my side for.
One of the few.
I lain in a half-sleep, hearing my grandmother's voice.
She said she was proud of me.
It probably was me and not her,
but at least someone is proud.
Dedicated to my grandmother, Kay Hannas.