wings.
on leaving & losing
Shaking, I turned to him. I turned
& found, crumpled on the grass, the faded red shirt.
/
I put it over my face & stayed very still—like my mother
at the end.
/
Then it came to me, my life. I remembered my life
the way an ax handle, mid-swing, remembers the tree.
/
& I was free.
— Ocean Vuong, “Woodworking at the End of the World”
i. AGAIN
At 6 am, the alarm goes off.
We are finally out of winter, and I wake up to sunlight for the first time in months. In the window, a cat is sleeping on the bench-swing Ba built last year. Perched on the wooden posts, birds sing harmonies against the wind.
I rub my eyes groggily and maneuver myself around the house absentmindedly before finally waking up. Sitting down, I pour myself a bowl of cereal. Cocoa Puffs, like always. I stir my spoon in the bowl clockwise until the brown starts to spill out into the milk, like the light above me. I eat half before I stand up again to remind myself to show you the new book I had read the night before.
Notes app, I think to myself. The screen lights up: Missed call. I tell myself I will respond later, and head to school.
ii. BECAUSE
You’re at home sick again. A competition, or studying for that big math test. Or— the missed call notification was at 3 am. You must have been up late.
I decide to let you rest, but the classroom is a little more empty without you. Someone asks me where you are. I shrug. I’ll text them, I say, but leave it at that.
Outside, birds are chirping again. One disappears into the light.
I think of how peculiar it is that the bird reminds me of you.
iii. YOU
You’re not here the next day, either. My message from Monday remains on Delivered. I text you.
u good??
I am shaking. You don’t respond.
iv. SHOULD
It is Thursday before I get the news.
I don’t understand. Certainly, it was an accident. The lady in her white jacket, hair unbrushed, explains to me tearfully that it couldn’t have been. And yet I don’t understand— right before spring?
In the corner of my eye, I notice a flower bud on the brick floor, separated from its stems. A bird across from it pecks at the pebbles, slowly revealing iridescent shimmers of crystal beneath. I remember reading something, somewhere, that people who commit suicide don’t want to die. They want a sign, anywhere, anytime, anyone, telling them to stay.
I think of how determined you must’ve been.
It is dark in the kitchen. I sit next to the dishwasher, listening to its humming, beating drums in my chest. The thing I need is still inside, warm. I sit and sob.
The humming stops, and the tears stop flowing. The ground is sticky and unnatural, but I don’t notice. At this point, I’m too tired, anyway.
What could I do? I ask myself, or to no one in particular. I don’t know how to answer myself, but I head back and splatter my face, red with grief, onto the desk.
v. STAY.
I wake up. It’s 2 am. I run my fingers under the sink until the blood beneath my cuticles runs away. I wash my hands in the dishwasher soap, in the kitchen, again, and again, and again.