literature

It's been four years

Deviation Actions

Published: Apr 5, 2015

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Literature Text

When you died, the world did not end.
the tectonics did not collide and crumple upwards
leaving the continents a messy patchwork with mountain
ranges for crooked spines. The oceans did not evaporate

swelling in a heavy July sky, bursting in the wildest of summer
storms, hurricanes ripping through seaside towns like howling
ghosts, looking for someone no longer there. The winds did not
mourn in a wailing chorus, the lightning did not keep striking your
grave, pounding down with angry fists and a desperation that if it
hits hard enough, you will open the ground up and beat back with
thunderclap hands. Plagues did not fester and wars did not ripple

like Chinese whispers through the nations. When you died, the world
kept its steady pace, spinning on a tilted axis that told of many more
tragedies already endured. Beneath my feet, the mantle continued to
bubble, pressing its heat up like atlas holding you up from tumbling
in pieces into the earth, holding me up from crumbling like the headstone
carved with your name, that will erode with your memory. But the mantle
does this for the dead and living alike, we are not special. Your death

will not be recorded in the sky or be etched into the history books,
your name will fade as descendants marry and remarry, as humanity
keeps its staunch march into a constant future. What I am trying to say

is that when you died, the world did not end. But to me –
The world is not the same without your kind acacia leaf eyes,
your rosehip knuckles, your laugh from the kitchen. And I will
not have the privilege to stay in your home again, curled under
floral sheets that smell of lavender, waking up to soft dawn light
and you humming to the radio downstairs, cakes in the oven and
a smile on my face, and a love held as mixing up white icing, your
strong hands guiding my own, awkward and weak, a love shown
in two teacups and two teabags and two teaplates, a love known
by the way I still hear you hum in the half-dreaming moments
when the birds call and I swear the room is made of lavender.

But you are gone and I, well, I am still here, holding on to
memories instead of your hands, echoes instead of
laughter.