Death of a Nihilist [poetry]

14. predecease

we lost you in a room full of running

blood and water. on newly-painted yellow bathroom

walls, tiles still slick with the smell of daydreams

and morning sickness. the doctors came by,

declared you're gone. their condolences,

sorrowful expressions weren't much different

from the smiling stuff toys atop of folded

white baby bed sheets and clothes

you were supposed to be born into,

but now you weren't even able to be buried with.

your dad boiled dry ginger pieces on the stove,

filtered the tea through citrus skin.

i didn't have the heart to tell him:

no matter how many kettles whistling

in the background silhouettes of

an empty crib and a still mobile,

no matter how many warm cups of tea he nursed

past my chapped lips,

the phantom sensation of your presence

kicking in my belly, lingered, reminding me

the bad aftertaste of wrinkled work-in-progress

baby names, crushed and balled up in my sweaty palms,

the way your life form had felt, spider-webbing and slipping

from the gaps of my fingers, my thighs.

your grandma phoned. she spoke in flatline static,

humming to a distilled heartbeat

no longer pulsing or pumping,

yet fretting stubbornly within the ballooning space

inside my existence, dwelling in the excess and cavities

of my soul, in spite of my body's trembling joints

and shaking bones.

the call went on for longer than your

departure,

and i watched the rosy sun dampened the gloomy

summer night,

until the voice of your father, your grandma blurred together,

tucking me under thick cotton blankets,

rocking me to sleep, and singing the hymns

i'd sing to you.

finality sounded like the eventual

mechanical click of a line,

or the shiver crawling

down my weakened spine.

⸻

predecease: to die before (another person)

prompt: I think we're lost