ERASURE OF “I NEED YOU” BY AMERICA

Welaugh

And

carry on And make the best of

the rain.

I need you,

you know

I need you.

NESTING DOLL

My grandmother’s death is a big grief — the size of,

maybe, a medicine ball. Anything bigger than that

is no longer grief, it is hopelessness, which is

generally much worse. Nobody talks about it, it being

hopelessness, without lying at least a little bit. I do not

want to lie, anymore. Lying is a plum-sized grief.

When I was younger I treated truth carelessly and

cannot tell you why, only that the guilt never tasted

quite as bitter as it should have. Guilt is a watermelon-

sized grief. Premature forgiveness is a peach.

There is something terribly fitting about eating loss

when you’re able to.

I have not always been able to.

Misplacing love for the first time was a wad of taffy

as big as my head. I crawled away with a cavity

on my canine but at least I crawled away.

The trick is to stop believing you will come away

unscathed and, instead, prepare for the inevitability

of upheaval. One time my grandmother asked me

if she was the reason that I was always so sad

and I told her the truth, which was that I don’t know

why I’m always so sad. What I should’ve said, what

she probably needed to hear, was you are the opposite

of what is misprinted in my foundation, but I’ve never

really been one for saying the right thing at the correct

time, which, of course, is why I write, why I’m here

at all, meditating on grief, trying to say something that

sounds nicer than I would like you to come home, now.

I would like you to take your shoes off by the coat rack

and leave me notes on the kitchen counter, brag about

me to your friends as I turn into a strawberry, take me

to terrible matinee comedies and pretend we both

hated them. I promise that, if you do, I’ll stop talking

to loose change on the sidewalk, poking at the birth

mark on my chest that isn’t there anymore, eating the

flowers we once planted so carefully by the big tree.

Dolly, they taste so sweet, and fresh. Like a place I

could finally be happy in.

THE DEPRESSION NOTES

When the hurt comes I crawl quietly

into his belly

and contort my body into a circle,

suck oxygen in through a straw poking out

of his mouth.

I wait until it’s safe to return to myself,

wait hours longer than that,

and then slip back into the present

as a river will fade

into a larger river.

Depression is a broad and

twisted sort of desperation.

A waiting room television that never

shuts off, though I have tried.

Reaching with the best parts of me

toward joy, wondering if joy can