A hummingbird died at my work today. Crashed into the tinted window. Everyone was morbidly excited, except me, who felt on some level responsible for it. Like the very fact that I exist is more cause to the fact that another creature has died. It’s strange, because in every broken bird – every tiny, feathered creature I see my father. I wonder silently if this one is him. If we’ve beaten him to bits again. No one understands that. Not even when they say they do. 

Lately, I have been imagining myself in my father’s place. Dark empty corridors and white nightgowns. I think about him watching me die. Vindication, relief, sorrow and joy. I think about my mother – who is always happier in her misery – meaningful tears and soft words, pleas. I am coming to understand that my imagination is going to destroy me. 

Before my Dad died, there was this patch of Iris that I loved. They were my Grandmother’s who passed them to my Aunt who brought them to my Dad. Everyone’s dead now, dried up like the blooms. They survive quietly on the border of my house, large, white teardrops apologetically blossoming every May and September. I like to sprinkle them with water and watch them breathe. At some point in time, I would love to spend a short life as a flower. A longer life as a tree. 

There are small moments of peace – the hot and thick incense dancing across my screen. The rain showers which are never often enough to feel satisfied. The lightning, reminding me that I’m not the only one who can change with such lasting devastation in split seconds. Small moments of peace do not last. It’s what makes them special. Lately, I feel like I am drifting between waves. Lost in an ocean just trying to swim to shore, and I’m convinced that I can no longer sense the Earth’s magnetic field. I close my eyes.

Not long enough to sleep, but long enough to let the emotions linger. So long I’ve tried to keep everything buried. Afraid of someone seeing too deep. We are not meant to live buried. 

The neighbour stands outside breaking dishes. He is angry. Yelling ‘Why’. His wife quietly sweeping up the tiny, porcelain pieces. I understand both of their questions: His unanswered, hers unasked. 

-

Time passes and their children arrive, fashionably late avoids the suburban dissonance that has just taken place. Laughing and stumbling, falling and crying – they infect my neighbours’ yard. Once, I would have found them annoying. Now, they are a welcome distraction to the utter solitude of my thoughts.

The wind wafts heavy smoke into my face, clouding my vision – or, perhaps, clearing it. 

Charles lounges with pharonic grace on the porch beside me. Deep and steady breaths stand in sharp contrast to the conversation. I pretend like it doesn’t bother me that he is just slightly too far out of my reach. I have the need to touch things lately – I no longer trust my eyes. I want to slide my fingers across his face, kiss his brow. I want to be told – even shakily – that everything is fine. A dog is a man’s best friend. A woman needs more. 

The neighbour is yelling again, the whole family up in arms. From the porch, it looks like they are having a warm family dinner. The open window, reveals their secrets. I wonder how many of my secrets are spilled through half-open doorways and windows that I convinced myself I had shut.

A siren speeds through the neighbourhood. it makes me nervous how easily everything can fall apart. I don’t want to be a siren, blaring through the neighbourhood on top speeds. I want to be the guardian angel – feather-light touches and warm embraces. Soft, soothing words and an iron will. The ability to reach into a gory mess and pull out a man. 

I am afraid that women are forgetting who we are. She stands on the porch and heaves long, aching sighs. I want to say something but I don’t know what. I do the only thing I know how to – I go inside and get bubbles. I sit behind the fence and blow them up toward her. She doesn’t notice at first but then her crying slows and she looks up – laughs. A real smile crawls across my face for the first time in hours. She makes eye-contact with me through the slat and my skin crawls. She smiles at me weakly and nods. As if I had become her voyeur. I make a sign to let her know I’ve seen her. She’s not invisible to me. Her son comes out to touch her shoulder – a soft tactile form of reconciliation. She is no longer alone. I walk away. 

-

I feel strangely disconnected. The desire to be held is suffocating me again. I want to step on the tops of my father’s feet and have him spin me around in graceful circles. I want him to tell me that he loves me. I want birthdays and Christmas to be filled with him again. Loud and laughing and demanding and colourful. Looking back, I see all the times that he said goodbye before it actually happened. Looking back, everything seems so obvious. I hate myself for it now. 

A memory that has plagued me for much of my life breaks through the din in my head. The news breaks through with a bubbly announcer in a red shirt, too much lipstick “Employees held up today in the Triad Centre.” My mind goes blank. 5 hours I watched and cried as I convinced myself slowly that I would have to live without my Dad. His shirts strewn across the floor as I curl up in them all, desperately trying to remember what he smells like. Fear. My Dad came home that night and had to hold me until I fell asleep. I was six. He always smelled like crushed flowers, licorice, rich tobacco and cheap hairspray. Sometimes, he smelled like expensive whiskey. I would kill to hear him crush the ice between his teeth again. 

I sit in the table where he sat. Endless hours have gone by where I wait for him to appear through the smoke. I’ve even taken up smoking because of it. I am convinced that one day, I will light my cigarette and he will appear, laughing and bright-eyed to help me finish it. It’s a dream that I can’t afford to lose. Lose that and I will disappear into a sea of madness. 

The porch light kicks off again. This time I don’t move to turn it back on. I feel like I am sinking and rising, a bobby in the bay. Darkness is thick in my mind and the thoughts that I fight so hard to turn off are suddenly silent. This home feels foreign to me when they’re around. You would never approve of him. The thought occurs that I am writing this – as I have been for so long – to explain myself. I don’t know why there is this need, this drive to provide an answer. Perhaps this all seems to crazy to not have some sort of explanation. These types of things don’t happen without some form of cosmic significance. I can’t believe just yet, that the universe is static. 

I close my eyes and the sharp smell of lemons makes my mouth water. Ghost senses like little messages from the Underworld. I see you. I smell you. The ashes from my incense click into the glass with the tiniest of dings. I begin to slowly convince myself that my father is here. Insanity is easy when you allow yourself to think. 

Cars pass by and Charles howls. He has become quite attached to the man who wants to replace my father. It is more proof that what I care about is not concerned with me. I am a drifter, a rogue. I have become an emotional concubine – built upon the ability to please others, to lift them from their sorrows and with strong hands, push them back into their lives. But I have no one to help me. The smell of lemons is intoxicating. I lean back and shut my eyes. 

It is strange how the roar from outside moves in waves. The din is unbearable until you stop to listen to it. A hummingbird comes to drink in the safety of my backyard. I will break the windows before I turn my house into a testament of man’s willpower. The quiet here thickens and another incense stick burns to nothing. I feel like a the ashes have been kindled. The safety and freedom which I have been given here is delicious. I refuse to live in fear any longer. It is my right to speak. My right to think. It is my right to slowly turn until I fit within the boundaries of my skin. I am not a body trapped within the confounds of the universe, I am a soul trapped within the confounds of the possible. Forgive me, but I must share this burden with you. I am too tired and too distant to carry it further without help.