A Death in the Living Room

Written late at night, inspired by the blue lights that briefly lit up my room.

My father spent his last three days with us, lying dead in the living room. Winter had only just ended. Although the snow had melted and the sun shone warmly through the window, my father still felt so cold. His face was frozen in a peaceful expression, as if he was thankful he could finally rest. We were told that after his heart gave out, he likely only felt pain for a couple of seconds before he was off. I wonder what he thought about in those seconds.

Maybe he asked for forgiveness.

Maybe he thought of us – his two boys of five and seven, his wife, his other son, his daughters… maybe even the cat? I don’t actually remember him interacting much with the cat. Honestly, I don’t have many memories of him anymore at this point.

But maybe he thought of the ones I also still remember: how I would squeeze the skin on his hand, between his thumb and index finger. How I would walk on his feet, and he would make me feel as if I was taking giant steps. Or maybe a memory from the photo book, where he held me as I slept in his arms, under a tree in the Amazon. Or maybe it was a tad less dramatic than all of that.

Either way, he seemed to be at peace, at least.

He lied in the living room for three days, give or take. We painted his humble coffin – his final resting place, with cars, stickmen, clouds, the sun, our names, and every other thing we could think of. We did not question it. After three days his coffin looked rather lively, with all its drawings and colours.

I even talked to him sometimes. I would just tell him about my day, or about some other small thing. I do think about how it would be to talk to him now if he was in front of me. I would probably just cry. The thought of it already does, anyway. If I really think about it, I don’t think I would say anything, honestly. Any question I would want to ask him would be met with the same dead silence I faced all those years ago. The dead silence I continued to face after he was buried. The dead silence I still face. For some questions, the answer will never be enough.

My father spent his last three days with us, lying dead in the living room. Winter had only just ended. Although the snow had melted and the sun shone warmly through the window, I still felt so cold.

Buckets and Toast

I threw up a few times this morning. I stared blankly at the chunks of my peanut butter toast that floated in the blue bucket I was given by my mum, alongside the palpable disappointment.
Briefly I remembered the events from the night before: the sound of laughter, a full glass, an empty glass, dry heaving, my friend’s dinner in a black bucket next to his bed. After we put him to bed, I was walked to the station by two people I barely knew a few hours before, but after bonding over buckets it felt as natural as toast.
These sort of nights are not what I imagined when I was younger, and thought about how it would be to be all ‘grown up.’ I wanted to be a firefighter – but not just any firefighter, I wanted to be a firefighter with a hat.
Now, however, it seems as if the only thing I am capable of effectively extinguishing are my hopes and dreams. Every glass of that tempting, pain-killing poison, every night awake till 3am to escape responsibility, or to feel like I am for a brief moment in control of my life and I can do what I want. It all adds to the increasingly extinguished dream life I once wished for.
All this may sound rather bleak, but it is in those worst moments that there is usually a sliver of motivation again. Motivation that is resuscitated by feeling so close to death. Gone are the days of firefighter dreams, but at least there is hope.
Though I must say, the hope comes at the strangest moments. In this case, I was staring at my measly breakfast floating in my bile, in a blue bucket. I took a deep breath, and stood up. It was a bit too much to ask, but after one more heave I was ready to not just let my life be buckets and toast.

Death and a Couch

A Memoir Piece instead of a Poem

I never liked that swamp-green couch. Maybe it is because that’s where I sat when I heard that dad died. He had reached the end of his line, while I had only just begun mine.
In my innocence I could not comprehend death. I did not understand why my brother was crying, or why my mum looked as if her heart had been torn to pieces. I believed I would come down the stairs one day and see him there on his favourite chair, reading the newspaper.
He never sat on that couch. I don’t think he liked it either. But now I have more memories with that couch than I have of him.
It’s where I sat with my brother during a thunderstorm, a few years later. The clouds had turned an evil green, and I only dared to look for a brief moment before I closed the curtains again. I remember crying into the couch while praying for the thunderstorm to pass.
There was constant anxiety in me. Ever since my dad passed, I was stuck. Stuck thinking that I could die any moment, or that my mum also wouldn’t come home one day. If she did not get back home at the exact time she said she’d be back, I became the embodiment of panic.
I paced back and forth through the living room while constantly checking the front and back of the house, sometimes sitting down for a second on that old couch, but I could not find my rest. I went to the neighbours, crying and begging if they could find out if she would be coming home.
Sometimes I would just sit on the couch with my gaze fixed on the front door while my mum was away from home. Those years of my life were a living hell. The anxiety would strike at random times and when it did, all I could do was sit and try to breathe. As I matured, it gradually became less severe.
We threw out that old couch when we moved house a few years after my dad’s death. We went to the dump, and I still remember the couch’s dying sounds as it was fed to the crushing machine. The first push of the metal on the wood broke its back as it seemed to break in two.
I looked away after watching the macabre display for a moment. The couch did not want to give up yet, as it managed to cling on for a minute. When I looked again, there was just a mix of green fabric and wood. It was the end of another chapter.
I still sometimes miss that couch.