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And the fossil of my heart will be a honeycomb.
A conch shell made of carbon waiting to be turned into a megaphone.
It will have the small bodies of trilobites and prehistoric insects nestled in it.
Dating back to the last time it was used.
Dating back to before its switch was thrown from ‘beating’ to ‘beaten’.
Back before it was buried like Pompeii under the Vesuvius of the last relationship.
It’s the can in a rodeo competition that is thrown in the air for people to shoot at.
It’s a swiss-cheese whiffle heart that can no longer hold on to love.
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Martha. Even the doctors agree now.
They say there’s something wrong with the connective tissue in your chest and that you won’t last out the year. I find myself crying and caring like I haven’t done since the death of your mother. Seconds I spend not holding your hand and hearing your innocent laugh and flat and long.
The ones I spend with you as you race towards death are bright. There is still so much you have to experience that I have taken for granted.
When I was your age, six years old, I found a crow with a broken wing in my back yard. I wrapped it in a towel and put it into a shoebox and carried it inside. I poured water into its beak. It twitched uncomfortably but was no longer panicking. I feed it some cheese. I didn’t know how to make a splint or take care of it.
My dad came home from work and looked at the bird with sympathy in his eyes and a rubik’s cube of a problem. Looking back on it, I can see how raising a child, for better or worse, is never boring.
He looked at the bird and told me that crows heal fast. He said that it would be better by tonight and that he would stay up and release it after I’d gone to bed. He said that I should dream of it flying away laughing into the full moon of midnight.
I did. In the morning, he said that the bird flew away successfully and that I’d done something good. I was happy.
It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that it occurred to me what actually happened. Birds don’t heal in hours. If I’m not mistaken, birds don’t heal at all. My dad, being a nice guy, wouldn’t just throw a bird with a broken wing into the cruel playground of nature to be eaten by a cat or chewed on by a dog.
I’m sure that with tears in his eyes from having to lie to his son and with determination born of a life of hard manual labour, he took the bird out and killed it there in the darkness with his bare hands in an act of mercy.
In a way, he did set that bird free. I dreamt of it laughing in the night-time sky, using its natural camouflage to blend in with the darkness as it soared through the eternal night.
Because of you, dear daughter, my heart is no longer a fossil.
My heart is a megaphone warming up.
It’s beating again, but still broken.
Dust flies off of it like a carpet being beaten.
It’s a crow in a shoebox.
You dragged it in from the wasteland that the inside of me had become.
You’re feeding it cheese and water and it’s no longer panicking.
I am my own father now, looking at it and knowing that this wild thing with hollow bones was built for soaring and that it will never be capable of doing that again.
I will tell you that I’ll be okay and not to worry.
My darling daughter, after you go to sleep this last time, I will take my heart into the woods behind our house and kill it with my bare hands to keep it safe.
Dream of me loving, smiling under the mid-day sun. Dream of us laughing at picnics.
tags
A conch shell made of carbon waiting to be turned into a megaphone.
It will have the small bodies of trilobites and prehistoric insects nestled in it.
Dating back to the last time it was used.
Dating back to before its switch was thrown from ‘beating’ to ‘beaten’.
Back before it was buried like Pompeii under the Vesuvius of the last relationship.
It’s the can in a rodeo competition that is thrown in the air for people to shoot at.
It’s a swiss-cheese whiffle heart that can no longer hold on to love.
There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Martha. Even the doctors agree now.
They say there’s something wrong with the connective tissue in your chest and that you won’t last out the year. I find myself crying and caring like I haven’t done since the death of your mother. Seconds I spend not holding your hand and hearing your innocent laugh and flat and long.
The ones I spend with you as you race towards death are bright. There is still so much you have to experience that I have taken for granted.
When I was your age, six years old, I found a crow with a broken wing in my back yard. I wrapped it in a towel and put it into a shoebox and carried it inside. I poured water into its beak. It twitched uncomfortably but was no longer panicking. I feed it some cheese. I didn’t know how to make a splint or take care of it.
My dad came home from work and looked at the bird with sympathy in his eyes and a rubik’s cube of a problem. Looking back on it, I can see how raising a child, for better or worse, is never boring.
He looked at the bird and told me that crows heal fast. He said that it would be better by tonight and that he would stay up and release it after I’d gone to bed. He said that I should dream of it flying away laughing into the full moon of midnight.
I did. In the morning, he said that the bird flew away successfully and that I’d done something good. I was happy.
It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that it occurred to me what actually happened. Birds don’t heal in hours. If I’m not mistaken, birds don’t heal at all. My dad, being a nice guy, wouldn’t just throw a bird with a broken wing into the cruel playground of nature to be eaten by a cat or chewed on by a dog.
I’m sure that with tears in his eyes from having to lie to his son and with determination born of a life of hard manual labour, he took the bird out and killed it there in the darkness with his bare hands in an act of mercy.
In a way, he did set that bird free. I dreamt of it laughing in the night-time sky, using its natural camouflage to blend in with the darkness as it soared through the eternal night.
Because of you, dear daughter, my heart is no longer a fossil.
My heart is a megaphone warming up.
It’s beating again, but still broken.
Dust flies off of it like a carpet being beaten.
It’s a crow in a shoebox.
You dragged it in from the wasteland that the inside of me had become.
You’re feeding it cheese and water and it’s no longer panicking.
I am my own father now, looking at it and knowing that this wild thing with hollow bones was built for soaring and that it will never be capable of doing that again.
I will tell you that I’ll be okay and not to worry.
My darling daughter, after you go to sleep this last time, I will take my heart into the woods behind our house and kill it with my bare hands to keep it safe.
Dream of me loving, smiling under the mid-day sun. Dream of us laughing at picnics.
tags