Coats From Our Shoulders

Last year, when I cast flowers onto your coffin in memory of your sweetness,

I acknowledged you were dead for the first time.

I didn't call it by any other name

I had learned to accept that you'd left us.

That you were not in the other room.

That you'll only ever exist in a secret space

There till i turn my head,

Laying next to me till I wake up.

That you are gone and your room is gone and the only evidence i have that you were ever here is old photographs on the mantle mum will take down because it hurts to see

But memory is an interesting thing, and the more times echo through me the quiter, it becomes

Like, i dont know who you were or what you were like

But i do know who you were

You loved pink lilies

I spread their petals across your gravestone,

You loved the beach and hot summer sunsets and getting black out drunk on the carpet,

If you asked any of our siblings to describe the first thing we think of when we think of you, we would say "Versailles" (and other things that happened in 1938 to 45)

Now, cramped on my king-sized mattress by skins and blisters, my bedroom has become a holy place where something sweet had happened since i was seven

And there are freshly plucked lily petals that I bought myself in crystal vases on nightstands, stolen from your room before mum cleared it out

And the longer I think about you

the more time shrugs you off as listlessly as the coats from my shoulders.

Time casts you off like coats from our shoulders.

Time casts us off, like coats from our shoulders.