Pain like none other
darkness around every corner
heartache to make devils weep

I could never have imagined what I feel now
the agony of her loss is so strong
it drowns out everything else.
Hope is dead
and there is nothing to comfort me

I’ll never hear her voice
and worse

I’ll never escape the image of her laying there
surrounded by blankets
resting on a cardboard box

burning

The sound the furnace made

my sister sobbing

puking

her gray hair streak that wasn’t there when I saw her the first time

or maybe in my agony I missed it

the lack of scent

aren’t the dead supposed to smell?

her face.  not hers and hers all the same

in my mind is a building

white stone and stark in its beauty

stairs in the front leading up

a dim cool spartan room

carved from snow white rock is it granite? or marble?

in the center of the room is a dais

but before we get to that….

roses.  20,955 roses.  One for each day of her life

all of them red.  Red for passion and blood.

each bunch in a clear vase

now back to that dais….
a flat white dais raised to waist height.

on it, there she is as i last saw her.

shirt raised to cover her trach.  She’d appreciate that

hands loose

gray hair streak

and a white sheet draped from mid torso down, covering her legs.

dead….but not in my memory

Why did my mind want so badly for her to wake.

why can’t it all be not real

Why can’t I make it more than a week without a late night breakdown

Why can’t I make it more than a few hours without visiting that room

How do  I move on from an unspeakable loss

How do I continue?

worse is the realization that all humans die

and my daughter will one day hurt

as does my mother’s daughter now.