You don't come around anymore,
but I still remember making memories
that never had a place existing anyways—

the say heaven, hell, and purgatory
don't count as long- distance
still I punch in your number,
listening.
To the buzz on the other end,
muting the television,
turn down the lights,
and put candles in the room;

I keep your existence alive by fabrication,
sewing selective memories in the lobes of my brain,
but they manifest
& my dreams--
are the seams of my sanity
being pulled out.

You're always there with a glass of lemonade.
Yet, you never knew what an inside voice was,
as you scream about how wonderful the afterlife is.

Your proposal a tempting blade,
the encouraging way
you promise
I'll see you-
meeting the artery in my neck,
or a tendon in my wrist.
You know-
I've done it more than once-
mistake my sickness, for your ghost.
I swear,
I can hear your voice,
all the time now.

I haven't felt this sick in a long time,
can't even recall the last time sleep came to
me in a quiet hush, with a wash of calmness,
asleep with the sky resembling
a blanket of
stars casted
out into the atmosphere.

A constant migraine hammered into my skull,
everyday I burst out randomly and cry
so hard until my knees quake,
my sadness does not end,
it folds me, unfolds me;
creases me, & turns me into a paper airplane-
I float.


There's no tin can tied to string,
I can't set out lawnchairs,
and await
for the Thursday,
you were supposed
to live to see-
never comes,
there's an emptiness in shuffled feet,
and hatred for that surgical green color.

Or when people utter "home"
I think of your paralysis
and the way your word's
fought for meaning, in that slurred tone:

"I'm going home"
I've never been religious
nor do I judge those who are,
but I've been spiritual my whole life-
the spirit knows when it dies.

my skin shudders to think how they carted you off;
to discover the parts of your body
you had not known were betraying you,
your lung's gave up
and soon the breaths in your chest,
had no place left in this world.

Like anyone else;
trying to justify why time rots hope, as it loosens our grip on reality.

Awaiting your chatter as
I shave my legs while,
you do your make up
in the faintly lit bathroom;
I hated that guava pink lipstick
you wore like it was your job.
I loved that mauve colored one
that made cherubs beg for you to
hold them in your maternal arms,
always having open arms for all outcasted,
it was part of your charm.

They say you always know when you're dying:
does that make an illness,
the equivalent to the
heartbreak of your body knowing
it has no regard to live any longer,
and the crisis with mortality,
that if we fend off fears and try to be stronger,
then an unbeknownst curiosity for what happens.

You know, we all know.
We are all going to die someday.

But-
does your mind go
when you die too?
or do memories remain
as something complacent
that even death cannot
strip the soul of?