Death of a Nihilist [poetry]

31. an eulogy to grieving

all the women in my family died young,

but my mother never taught me how to grieve.

she taught me not to cry at hardships of my own doings,

she taught me not to afraid of the darkness of my own bringing,

yet, mother, i don't know how to miss wat i love,

don't know how to love what i missed.

in front of your corpse i only knowhow to stand, dazed,

back still slouched and chin still low,

forever still a child, simply accepting superficial words

thought not their meanings.

the scariest thing about losing my mother

is not what comes after she is gone,

is not what falls into the void of her presence.

the scariest thing about losing my mother is my shame,

unable to mourn, to remember,

unable to retur this debt as proper

for the only one woman 

that placed the simple happiness of a stupid child like me

at the centre of this universe.

i've learned everything i need to know

to live without you.

but mother, how i wish you had taught me how to grieve

a life without you.

to mourn is a human condition i've forgotten.

inherited it from my father, the same way we

speak without love and love without speaking.

at the news of his own mother's dying,

he just stared quietly laughing.

he taught me death is nothing

more than a matter of fire and forcing,

he taught me funerals is nothing

more than a flight home to a faraway place

we had forsaken.

yet, father,

how should i sweep for my mother's passing?

failing to grasp onto bits and pieces of impressions,

slipping through my fingers

her memories and pills and devotions.

father, what should i say to my mother's coffin?

knowing her death will be filed away

somewhere in my distant recollection,

where sensories and time hung

in bulging black plastic bags

like stacks of discounted books i buried

in our backyard shed, never to crack open

except during spring cleaning.

i'm sorry, mother.

the older i get, the less capable i am.

only knowing how to live for myself,

carrying on this aimless, sardine life,

content shuffling through one tin can to the next.

in the face of losses i only watch 

and wait,

writing poems about death

as if  can comprehend its true implications.

i'm sorry, mother

you had given birth to such selfish being.

i'm sorry,

you'll have to carry to your grave my grieving.