You are made of almost nothing
You split into the heat
To be ceaseless movement
You fall with the other husks of summer

So here you are, doing it again. So here it is, happening again. You have taken her, and her, and now her. First, you ruthlessly made her suffer to live, then you snatched it from her, the husk of a life you left her after you split that fabulous cleavage and drained the juicy red from her fruity lips, those lips that opened to unbelievable song. How could that much sound and fury come from that small frame, made of almost nothing? But you snatched it all: the lips, the voice, the life, didn’t you, and now you’ve got one more notch on your endlessly long belt, the belt that keeps unraveling and raveling and unraveling straight on ‘til mourning.

Before her, the dark raven songbird, you took the sun, she of the blonde, radiant, sunburst, starburst brilliance, illuminating even as you snuffed out spots and points in her brain, this one, then that, the left hand, the right ear. Still, she radiated, lying curved by the zero-gravity chaise in the eighty-degree heat of late Sonoma County summer, legs long and smooth, cerise boy shorts across her flat stomach, breasts still full and intact despite your primary entry there. Enough sentience left to articulate and establish preferences, and worry, still, about the ones who would be left. Enough to let me lie down with her, in her bed, and know that my questions were rehearsal for when my own time will come. And maybe just that way, the way hers came; it’s logical after all, though we both know, we all know, there is no logic in your chaotic clear-cutting across forests where you have no business being. Logical for me, I mean, because hers started and stayed in her spine, like mine, for a long time, so where were you to go when residing there lost its allure? Up, only up, we all know you don’t bother with anything below the knees. You prefer to mess it up royally, completely; why break a tibia when you can ransack the entire network of synapses and neurotransmitters, nerve centers, and speech controllers?

Now you have her. You’ve just started with her, and how long will you draw it out? Watch out, you. She is formidable. This one’s an angel, truly, for real, an angel on earth, and she doesn’t need any fucking death lessons from you! She wrote the book—literally—remember? So she is poised to vanquish, just know that. And angels have armies. There are multitudes.

I am asking simply, as simply as I can, asking for you to lay off. Lay off this one, please. Don’t make me beg. Okay, you want me to beg? I’ll beg. Please, please, please, just stop. I’m sure there are plenty of other toys in your sandbox, fish in your sea, girls with red capes in your forest. I know why you want her—so many of us do—but trust me, she’s better here than there. Stop. Please. Just. Stop.

****

Prompt: The Life Cycle of the Dragonfly

9 November 2013

Third Annual Grief Retreat at Birdland