Digital Diary

The first time i ever visited a graveyard i was 6 years old 

2 years since my grandfathers passing 

My mother tucked me into a car seat i would take far too long to outgrow 

A seatbelt strapped tightly to a chest to small to understand loss 

How it grows, invaded and injects itself into the smallest of places 

I made a sound not permitted to transform into a cry 

Her eyes already elsewhere – two hollowed out windows half buried met mine, then fled 

The road repeated itself 

Houses masked in disguises 

Time thinned and stretched but refused to break 

The radio murmured like a voice trapped behind a wall 

The scent of vanilla and detergent drifted through the car 

From a life still pretending to be whole

Outside the world slipped past us through a window i could barely reach

The world moved on without waiting

We sped past his rickety old house already halfway gone

Still standing purely out of habit alone

We arrived to a place where nothing arrived

Not even us

Babes rose through the ground like teeth

Like the ground was remembering how to speak

My mother stood stagnant where the air held its breath

My teeny feet circled her 

A name resembling my own started back at me

Something winged and small landed upon the clouded stone briefly

Like proof of movement

I called for her

She did not follow

I thought he must be late

Doesn’t he know? 

Mommy hates that

I asked when i would meet him

Her hand formed a fist around mine

I didn’t understand that names could stay 

Even when people didn’t 

The second time i ever visited a graveyard i was 23 years old 

This time i drove myself through the skeleton of what used to be 

The houses did not pretend to be whole 

Windows boarded up and relinquished surrendering to the elements 

I sped past the overgrown lot where the little grey house once stood 

Now reduced to only ash and rubble 

The driveway she learned to ride a bike, devoured by weeds 

The blueberry patch she spent her summers with my grandmother, now out of reach 

Her bedroom once filled with giggles and whispers collapsed under splinted wood 

That little girl still sits somewhere within the wreckage 

Once again rubber over stone 

Krssh krssh krssh 

Time no longer stretched – it settled 

His name etched into stone stared back at me

I spent my entire life trying to understand her 

And in that moment i became her 

I reached for her heart buried within my own chest 

Still beating like something that didn’t know it had ended 

It is only now that i know that some people never arrive 

It is only now that i know the permanence of lateness