Condolences
by Shana Ross
grief is where empathy is forced to ask questions
my friends’ fathers are
dropping
I mean dying
like flies
husks and shells left
iridescent
sometimes sudden
cessation
of the faint drone
we got used to
no, that’s me
the constant
buzz
so crushed
into my psyche
I learn the words
subdermal
subaural
my skin crawls
my spine
vibrates
yes that constant
anticipation
anxiety
I cut off
most of my past
gnawed it
like a trap
detached
with a
clean click
like cutting current
to magnets
all
done
I don’t know how to
grieve
with others
for others
to them
instead
every day I am
scared
my father
will show up
with guns and scripture
to end
me
and what’s
to stop him
this timeline is full
of men
who return
vicious and eternal
as a slasher flick
every time you think
you’ve gotten
through
the game
someone else
in the arcade
feeds another
quarter
to the machine
to the whack a mole
they rise
they rise
pistons and pneumatics
unstoppable
your only
hope is to outlive
all the reasons
you can’t revisit
the geography of
childhood
safely
the woods, the fields
where your friends
wander on weekends
nostalgia is a privilege
of the unwounded
or at least
the unscarred
I am sorry, so sorry
you have lost
please know
what you have lost is
an idea I can’t
reason my way
into understanding
I am sorry
for myself too
but less than
I grieve for you
I know I cannot
say what I think
that this moment
is an aching want
in me, I fear
I am tempting
sin
I keep birthing
this buzz around me
like flies
like flies
seasonal and
hungry
for rot.
