Everyday there’s a funeral inside my head.

Or no. No not a funeral. A funeral is much too alive. A funeral has mourners mouthing I love yous to each other from across pews. A funeral has sobs of anguish from disbelief. A funeral has company hoping to heal. Inside and out. In single file lines. With patience. With willingness. A funeral romanticizes life before death.

Everyday there’s a graveyard inside my head. Yeah, that’s more like it.

A graveyard has more end dates than birthdates. A graveyard has cold headstones etched with knives. Cold. Rainy. Even on sunny days. A graveyard has company when casket drops but no one in sight by the time the grass has grown back. A graveyard is just bodies barely resting in peace. A graveyard remembers death is all that’s left. .

Everyday there’s a graveyard inside my head with the same name on every stone. The name of my greatest gift and greatest friend. The name of my four-legged Saint of a steed my forever loyal angel—Dayo.

Before her life, all the gravestones used to say my name; until Dayo happened to me, revived my life, and replaced each stone with her own.

Everyday I plant forget me nots around each plot. Everyday I tell you I love you. Everyday I pretend your resting really is in peace. Everyday I thank you for my living. Everyday I imagine seeing you in my dying.

Everyday I ask if you’d meet me at the gates. Even just for one day to tell you that I am not afraid of death because seeing you in it is all I really lived for anyway. Even if that is the very last time. Even if that gets me banned from Heaven.

My God, I’ll take anything that you want to give me. My dog, I’ll give anything to take one more moment’s memory with you. My Dayo, I’d still trade my life‘s end for yours to begin again.

I told myself i was imaginary and that all of this wasn’t real but I found that my teeth ache from the grinding and my heart tense from the clenching and my head shrouded with self hate and my brain knocking itself overboard and now i think i need to face that this face is of flesh and I hate being real so I’ll say I’m imaginary at best—’cause in this pretend life I’m a pretend human clothed in a bull shit bulletproof vest.

My feelings are memories

My memories are feelings;

I’m numb now.

So I know I can say,

My feelings were memories

My memories were feelings

I’m dead now.

So I know I can lay,

In a Grave where

My feelings are feelings

My memories are memories

And all of us don’t care about

Either

Because graves keep bodies

Wholly decayed and

Feelings keep souls

Temporarily at bay

I’m done now.

My feelings are dead because

My memories lost their head

and I’m the one who cut it off.

even while sleeping,

our worlds think they forgot their meaning.

all the weight bears the same pain.

all that clumsy footing stands in vain.

even while sleeping,

our lives think they forgot they’re bleeding.

all the hate shares the same pain.

all the concrete footing stands in shame.

even while sleeping,

our lives reveal the secrets we’re keeping.

all the memories sharpen their blades

all the sadness darken their shades.

even while sleeping, we never truly rest.

love tries hard but pain does it best.

I remember little me. Asking so many questions in my head. Voiceless voice box. Silent chatter. I wanted to know.

Sometimes the eyes of the men at the Chip Club were sad and others were delighted. Most were lonely. All were loyal.

They remember little me. But recognize me as my mother now because time stopped in that house the moment it was built.

I’m one of Timmy’s girls. They always say they thought so. Asking how my mother is.

I know some names on the board filled with golden plates up there of the dead guys - all good, all died young. I like to pick out my uncle. And great one. Then grandpa. I can’t remember if he was on there. Danny meant more anyway. And Buster. Buster. Yeah. Did you know him? The old timers might.

They’re all old timers to me. The Irish prayers on sinful faded walls. The railing spewed splinters only pocket knives could remove. The pool table coughed chalk and the sticks were always someone's but still everyone's. The deep leather seats had cigarette breath since the late 60’s - a fragrance both potent and wholesome; the fragrance of my city’s home. The only aroma that reminds me of religion.

I remember little me. She’s in the room with me, inside me. Except now my mouth moves. My voice box volume is at its max. All of my questions, I ask them. I’m still one of Timmy’s girls but I came to ask what you’re still doing here.

Six drunk ghosts of men still sitting in the chair they died in, raise their glasses to me.

The Chippewa Chief in the portrait smirks and says,

I remember little you, too.

my blood trembled at the verbal pronunciation mechanically released from my own mouth. i say what I want to anyone.

I say, there are some precautions that simply do not prevent hazards;

there are some glasses of liquor that are simply not worthy enough to run and breathe and taste and kiss and suffocate even half of your blood dying to become numb;

there are some memories that can never be uttered without the entire weight of abandoned love. there are some melancholy notes of days when stars glittered gold and words brought purpose to broken hearts;

there are some lives that were birthed dead.

I say, there I live one of those; there I died in them, too.

my blood trembled at the verbal pronunciation mechanically released from my own mouth. i say what I want to anyone.

I say, there are some precautions that simply do not prevent hazards;

there are some glasses of liquor that are simply not worthy enough to run and breathe and taste and kiss and suffocate even half of your blood dying to become numb;

there are some memories that can never be uttered without the entire weight of abandoned love. there are some melancholy notes of days when stars glittered gold and words brought purpose to broken hearts;

there are some lives that were birthed dead.

I say, there I live one of those; there I’ve died in them, too.