Attempt Number 422

How can I tell you that the coldness
of your body on your last day on
earth is still stuck on my fingertips?

When the shrink advised me to face
your death, I did face it a hundred
times. I did, in a hundred nightmares.
It always felt like the moments
just before a goosebump hits you, where
your heart beats through your skin.

The days race to reach August.
Throughout the year, I cower behind
my poetry, and the lines under
my eyelids grow deeper. Your little kid
is a woman now. She rushes to work,
she makes her own breakfast, she
dislikes the house chores, just like
you did. She can’t tidy a bed, just like
you couldn’t. She fell in love, takes
her morning medication just in time.

Your little kid is broken now. She
had to learn more from you,
and how can I tell you now, after nine
years of grief, that I’m still in as much
grief as the day you were rushed to
the ER?

Do you really think it’s easy for me
to realize that? That the love in your
voice is something I’ll never get to hear
again? That a shrink would tell me
to talk and face your death,
and I can’t even think of you without
crumbling down?

How can I tell you that?