Letter to the Dead

Today I am with my ghosts who appear to be more concrete than the living. My mother is sitting at my disorderly desk, my grandmother is looking out the window at the pre-spring drab landscape, my sister seems surprised and uneasy to be here. I want to calm my sister, to tell her I know what happened, but fear alarming her more. She is vivid, my Viola, tall and thin, always pretty.

My ghosts did not have easy deaths. I wish I could slide past the gate separating the allegedly living and the confirmed dead. Belatedly I could hold them in my arms, but it would be a selfish act, as it is me who needs comforting. The dead rest peacefully; it is the heart and soul of a living being that struggles incessantly with nearly everything. As an example, it is more often than not my struggle to hold fast to sanity. I must not let the reality of my mother’s life pierce me and pierce me until I am bled out. I must not allow my grandmother to be behind the walls of a mental institution looking outward even if there is a blank wall before her. I must not allow the image of my sister seeing the knife racing toward her head and her chest, with her arms held up to preserve life for moments more. I must not allow myself to hear the screams of horror and agony as she is pierced over and over. My poor ghosts. I have nothing to give you in the way of consolation.

Does it waken you when I think so deeply on you? Does it cause you pain to be remembered?