Build the floor and call it quits. After winter, discover the lawnmower won’t start. Notice your teenage son’s bike has rusted. Watch him paint it black to match his mood.
When your wife says, “Build the damn walls,” paint them yellow.
Lose your son to silence. Keep the ceiling beams loose and put a window in the roof. Later, when he’s on his back with rope burns around his neck, hear him say, “Shit. The stars are amazing.”
I have to sit down to say this. Once a man offered me his heart and I said no. Not because I didn’t love him. Not because he was a beast or white—I couldn’t love him. Do you understand? In bed while we slept, our bodies inches apart, the dark between our flesh a wick. It was burning down. And he couldn’t feel it.
A mama tiger lost all of her cubs when they were born prematurely. She began to show signs of unhealth despite suffering no physical ailments. Attributing her illness to depression over the loss of her litter, veterinarians sought and found a solution.
“I don’t want to say it’s kind of like a death, but it’s kind of like a death.”
-The counselor
And then I remembered there are people who don’t take life or people who love them for granted. People who are eulogized with festivals and yearly commemorations. I want to finish the mourning and get on with my day. It is all. So. Brief.
Ves estas manos? Han medido la tierra, han separado los minerales y los cereales, han andado la paz y la guerra, han derribado las distancias de todos los mares y ríos, y sin embargo cuando te recorren a ti, pequeña, grano de trigo, alondra, no alcanzan a abarcarte, se cansan alcanzando las palomas gemelas que reposan o vuelan en tu pecho, recorren las distancias de tus piernas, se enrollen an la luz de tu cintura. Para mí eres tesoro más cargado de inmensidad que el mar y sus racimos y eres blanca y azul y extensa como la tierra en la vendimia, En ese territorio, de tus pies a tu frente, andando, andando, andando, me pasaré la vida.