This Death is Mine
By Shelly Smith
My death is mine, but it is most vivid in the eyes of those I love.
Wetter than normal, their irises reflect a wreckage they’d rather not witness. Shades of sky and grass and coffee, they have become overflowing pools of desperation, eyes wide in uncomfortable shock at their first sight of encroaching reality.
This is the least superficial moment of their lives. Mine too, I suppose. This is the most authentic they’ve ever appeared; this is the truest we’ve ever seen each other. I have provided a peek through the veil, and it is a gift they’d like to return. I let them.
As they cower in my bedroom, my bubble, I try to radiate the peace I’ve found. It too is mine, but I’ll share. Not so they cease the bartering prayers all but jumping from their lips, but so they dial down the pity.
I’m fine, I perform, fine and dandy, okie dokie, right as rain.
Though the fear of my death belongs to me, it stretches outward like the roots of an old, stubborn tree and trips up anyone walking by.
They stumble over my stretching fear and glance anxiously about the room, as if seeking a job to do. Anything to create a busy buffer. Anything to alleviate their shame of having a healthy body. Though mine belongs to me and theirs belong to them, they would share their vigor.
I hoard my ailment like I enjoy it.
Or perhaps they are searching for a stage. A platform where they can give a song and a dance, a performance in which they offer all of their earthly possessions in exchange for control over this. I envision them tap dancing with a top hat and jazz hands and a cane.
I wish I could tell them I’ve tried negotiating for years, to no avail. But just as bargaining is no use, neither is telling them so. Hopelessness creates a need to grasp.
With no magic stage to stand on, I see them swallow their fear with resignation and finally look at me lying in bed. Their necks are stiff; they don’t want to look. Still, they paste on a baby-talk smile and never notice me swallow my own fear.
The idea here, I’ve learned, is to out-act each other. We swap lines in an unpracticed play.
I’m okay, I say.
I’m okay too, they promise.
Everything is okay, they sigh.
All is well, I grin, with teeth. For what else would a faithful girl do?
The wrinkles around their eyes are the shape of a frown, but they turn the corners of their mouths up in a pitiful rendition of “alright.” Then comes the slow nod, the pat of my hand, and the hope that I buy their approval.
We’ll be fine; it’s okay to go now. Another weak promise, this from my mother, who denies the truth as much for herself as for me.
I know she won’t be, but I hide my knowing with an almost real and heavenly understanding. We’re both guilty, I suppose.
I exchange bravado with everyone who visits me that night. They shuffle into my room in pairs, while the rest of the family sits out in the living room.
And though my dying room is filled with simulated brightness, I can hear the honest, burdensome murmurs from out there. In the other room, conversation is so heavy, it is a job just to work the words from their throats. And it is grey somehow, like a stagnant cloud of fog that fills the house.
I own the storm this pollution comes from.
Get out, I think to all of them. Save yourself from this ugliness.
Would it be a kindness to die alone? To maintain the suffering within myself, to own it solely?
As the next duo of visitors hesitate down the hall to say goodbye, I again pinch and tuck my fear way back in the quiet place I’ve recently found in my chest. Another routine begins.
I’m okay. I swear to them. I’m not afraid.
They beam with an overzealous, Don’t you worry about us.
I pretend not to see their pretending, and we circle each other like two wrestlers in a ring.
I’m brave.
I’m brave, too.
I’m braver.
Oh yeah, well, I’m bravest of all.
We banter back and forth, bouncing politeness off one another, so neither is to blame for the other’s crumbling.
All night it goes like this: pretending, skating the surface of a frozen lake, dissociating to dodge the pain. My 39 years have come to an end. We’re all weighed down by the gravity of it, but we shrug our shoulders and bear the burden of a changing world.
The only one courageous enough to lose herself is my teenage daughter. She waits until everyone has gone, as is her quiet way.
Don’t go mom, she says with the truest eyes of all. I’m not ready.
No, perhaps our deaths are never our own.
Shelly Smith (she/her) lives in Idaho. She spends her days writing poetry and flash fiction, as well as a novel currently in the works. In the recent past, she has collaborated with musicians, writing lyrics to a full album and two hip-hop songs, and would love to do more. Though currently fighting a chronic and terminal illness, she works daily to beat the odds. Shelly is a poet and novelist currently seeking publication in various journals, both online and print. Her work has appeared on Antonymmag.com, Corporeallitmag.com, Brownbag.online, as well as others. She regularly posts her poetry on Twitter as @poseofpower. She can also be reached at shellyiswriting@gmail.com.