You were always loud, even when you whispered. |
Closed Casket You lay in a pine box at the front of the room with the primary colors of stained glass windows and Jesus and the Virgin looking down at you. There are flowers lining the crimson carpet step and arranged on the altar making friends with the Bible and the wine and sacrament covered in a cream cloth and one, single, solitary candle. I find it ironic in a bittersweet, makes me want to cry, sort of way. Is it wrong to laugh in church when all the people around you are crying or right there on the verge? There’s nothing funny about the candle, but I want to laugh because they are remembering your life with a small flicker flame atop a wick melting the wax in dripping formations the same way it melted your skin. I have an aftertaste of gasoline and smoke in my mouth but the only thing I smell is the lilac perfume your mother is wearing as she sits in front of me sobbing as the preacher talks about all your accomplishments. They seem like a lot for someone so young, but then again, you always liked to make a show of what you did. I remember the way you smiled when you played your saxophone and hit all the right notes. Or the way you cried when you couldn’t seem to find the right tone of middle C. You were always loud, even when you whispered. There was no ignoring you. “Look at me, look at me,” and we looked at you. So I find the flame bittersweet. It may be mocking us all when it flickers and we catch a sight of the smoke trail traveling up between the petals of the flowers towards the Cathedral ceiling. It’s reminding us, it’s reminding me, what’s inside that coffin sitting so pristine beside the altar. It reminds me that inside that fancy box, you lay there with melted features, like the wax, and black crisp skin and no hair and no eyes and no resemblance to the bright loud boy you used to be. Now you’re just dark, so dark I can’t shed a light on you. You went up in a flame, by your own god damned hand and I can’t find it in me to forgive you because of all the shows you’ve ever performed, of all the “look at me’s” you’ve ever screamed, there’s never been one I hated more than this. Never one that will stick with me longer than when you died so loud that the only way we could stop you from screaming was by giving you a closed casket. To Andy, 1989 - 2006. |