Claudia

“I refused to lose a wife and gain chores, so I accepted help.”
― Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers

“[...]

"I owe you", says "Your shoes are filling with your own damn blood,
you must want something, just tell me, and it’s yours."
But I can’t look at him, can hardly speak,
I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons, I’d just as soon kill you myself, I say.
You keep saying "I owe you, I owe…" but you say the same thing every time.
Let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk.
Not because I don’t believe it, not because I want it any different, but I’m always saving
and you’re always owing and I’m tired of asking to settle the debt.
Don’t bother.
You never mean it anyway, not really, and it only makes me that much more ashamed.
There’s only one thing I want, don’t make me say it, just get me bandages, I’m bleeding,
I’m not just making conversation.
There’s smashed glass glittering everywhere like stars. It’s a Western, Henry,
it’s a downright shoot-em-up. We’ve made a graveyard out of the bone white afternoon.
It’s another wrong-man-dies scenario
and we keep doing it, Henry, keep saying until we get it right…
but we always win and we never quit, see, we’ve won again, here we are at the place
where I get to beg for it

[...]”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“1

I watched TV. I had a Coke at the bar. I had four dreams in a row where you were burned, about to burn, or still on fire. I watched TV. I had a Coke at the bar. I had four Cokes, four dreams in a row.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding the straw dog. Here you are in the wrong house, feeding the wrong dog. I had a Coke with ice. I had four dreams on TV. You have a cold cold smile. You were burned, you were about to burn, you’re still on fire.

Here you are in the straw house, feeding ice to the dog, and you wanted an adventure, so I said Have an adventure. The straw about to burn, the straw on fire. Here you are on the TV, saying Watch me, just watch me.

2

Four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row, four dreams in a row, fall down right there. I wanted to fall down right there but I knew you wouldn’t catch me because you’re dead. I swallowed crushed ice pretending it was glass and you’re dead. Ashes to ashes.

You wanted to be cremated so we cremated you and you wanted an adventure so I ran and I knew you wouldn’t catch me. You are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.

3

I woke up in the morning and I didn’t want anything, didn’t do anything, couldn’t do it anyway, just lay there listening to the blood rush through me and it never made any sense, anything.

And I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t sit still or fix things and I wake up and I wake up and you’re still dead, you’re under the table, you’re still feeding the damn dog, you’re cutting the room in half. Whatever. Feed him whatever. Burn the straw house down.

4

I don’t really blame you for being dead but you can’t have your sweater back. So, I said, now that we have our dead, what are we going to do with them? There’s a black dog and there’s a white dog, depends on which you feed, depends on which damn dog you live with.

5

Here we are in the wrong tunnel, burn O burn, but it’s cold, I have clothes all over my body, and it’s raining, it wasn’t supposed to. And there’s snow on the TV, a landscape full of snow, falling from the fire-colored sky.

But thanks, thanks for calling it the blue sky You can sleep now, you said. You can sleep now. You said that. I had a dream where you said that. Thanks for saying that. You weren’t supposed to.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“One boy lost the treasured lunchbox
note from his mother saying 'good luck'.
He cried, alone in his room, then threw
a toy car at his father's framed Coltrane
poster. It smashed. He felt better. The
father dutifully swept up all the glass and
understood.”
― Max Porter, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers