Published by ♡ jovi 🐹

published 1748283520
updated 1748351596

Category: Writing and Poetry

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💨 thoughts while i sit outside

humans came and built

it's so loud i cant hear the birds sing

(my dad is mowing the lawn. i saw a pair of indigo buntings a bit ago

they were yelling at my chickens. nest nearby?)

yesterday would have been my grandpa's 90th birthday. on the glorious 25th of may. he died when i was just a few days away from finishing 6th grade. my grandma called after school to tell me. mom answered the phone so she got the news first. i remember getting this big smile on my face that i had no control over, and i remember thinking "whats wrong with me?"

i wasnt happy that he died. i was confused and dissociated. i knew what it meant, that he was gone, my face smiled, my heart wasn't in it. my brain wasnt in it. i still can feel that smile. i cant even remember his voice. memory is so strange

it smells so good outside

its nice and warm today,

and tomorrow my boyfriend gets here

inside the garage, even with the door open, letting the breeze in, it smells

my dad pulled the mower in

it smells like machine. harsh contrast

the other day, dad was telling me about how, at the old house when dad would mow the lawn, grandpa would sit out on the porch swing

staring

watching him drive back, and forth

back and forth

and dad would feel the sting of those eyes like hair pricking on the back of his neck so he would leave the front unfinished, retreat to the back

and most of the time grandpa would go back inside

and dad could finish mowing without those eyes

burning a hole in his head

my grandpa spent a lot of time on the porch swing. in the summer, when i got to spend more than just every other weekend over, i liked to sit out there with him and with grandma. grandpa was creative, eccentric. across the road, there was a swamp, with trees and brush and cattails and reeds, and at night, we would sit on the porch swing, and i'd find this light out there (probably from somebody's house or barn) and grandpa would say "there's stashu pandowski", and stashu pandowski was an elephant who wore pink sneakers (which were how he managed to be so quiet out there)

we'd listen to the tree frogs at night, watch the storms. his favorite trees were the willows

im fond of them myself. he would tell me "willows are the last to lose their leaves in fall, and first to bud in spring."

i dont know how true that is

but we would watch them

from the porch swing

just down the road as theyd sway in a gentle breeze

or bend in a ripping wind

weeping willows with golden crowns of sunlight in the evening.

i'm fond of the way they creak and moan

and the whisper of air through their hanging branches.

they go on like my grandma

not far behind him in truth

but they do go on like she does

cracking a laugh

a sigh because she's tired and needs to sit

can't carry a tune in a bucket but she murmurs along to her favorite songs, the ones that remind her of him.

18 years this june and i still haven't seen his grave. and i dont mean to go on about him. it took me a long time to let myself grieve, to let him go, but im grown up and can look at him through the eyes of somebody who has accepted that family is rarely perfect or even mostly good. but grandma, she isn't far behind him, and his birthday was yesterday, and i wonder if he's here to wait for her. i wonder if he really atoned in life, or in death, and is he waiting for her? is he going to guide her home when she's ready?

before he died while he was in the hospital, in a coma, grandma asked him if he would do one thing for her: come back. prove to her that the afterlife is real, so she wouldn't have to be afraid. not long after his death she woke late at night to a shadow on his side of the bed which slowly went around the foot of the bed to her side. and it kneeled down and laid its head on her belly, and she felt the short, silky soft hair and knew it was him, because she used to shave his head for him, and when she asked if she could turn on the light he said "no" and vanished.

just ghost stories

or a grieving widow

but he loved her

he used to dance with her

sweep her up in the kitchen

and he was light hearted

but maybe he was trying harder

because he owed it to her

because he betrayed her because he settled for her

because he couldn't have the woman he really loved

and he was depressed

and he was a drunk

and he thought he ought to have what he wants

he was the man of the house

typical working man

three kids

"i love my son but i don't like him" he said once

and my dad was only a kid

grandpa stopped drinking

he took his pills

and he swept grandma off her feet in the kitchen

for a dance to make her smile

all while sick, all while deteriorating, all while unhappy

that's a lot of energy put into love

into walls and floors and furniture

what pours in

must surely leak back out

when it overflows

it's late afternoon now. i have more cleaning to do before i settle in for the evening, and let go of control, and relax. im excited for tomorrow! the hours will just drag, i know, but when i kiss him tomorrow night i'll feel like home. have a great week everyone!

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