Memories

Say thank you and nod, say thank you and nod, say thank you and nod. . . I don't know these people. I don't want to be here; why am I here? I want my mommy. I WANT MY MOMMY!!! MOMMY WHERE ARE YOU? . . . MOMMY . . . mommy. . .
I sit here silent and alone. I am surrounded by people who mean well, yet offer me no comfort. I know that their words are meant to sooth and console, but they only make it harder. Harder to sit here and look pretty. Harder to sit here believing that this will never end. This is all that there is left. I am alone and nothing and no one can comfort me in this knowledge.
I didn't understand really and even now it's kind of hazy. I wore my favorite dress, the one that she had bought me. We all rode in the same car. It was hot and closed like riding in an elevator with too many people. I fell asleep in the car, and when we got there my aunt Cindy gave me a single carnation. To this day, I cannot remember what color it was, nr could I tell you what the room looked like or how I truly felt. All I knew was that I was alone, alone in a crowded room full of people I was supposed to know.
The coffin stands there in a corner, the only thing in the room. There are no chairs or tables, no people to stop and stare. It feels like the whole world has stopped, as if time stands still. Tears blur my vision but I cannot shed a single one. I know what is hid just inside that wooden box. A box to hide my hopes and dreams, and bury my heart and favorite memories in.
Her face so still and serene.
Everyone said she'd look just like she's sleeping. She never looked like that: a blank canvas where no picture has been painted nor a portrait drawn. Life has been erased, washed away by hate and envy.
I want to shake her and scream her name until she opens her eyes and sees me. But all I do is place that single carnation on her hands and walk away. I can't go back in there because I want to forget. I want to, no need to, remember her smiling face and bright laughter. But all I see is that still pale face. A face that is and isn't my mother.
So, I sit here hiding from what I cannot forget. Hoping, wishing, praying that it is all a bad dream. That she will wake up and tell me that everything will be all right. My mother, my world. Without her here to hold me, there is nothing left. All of my family is lost in their grief. Everyone cries when they see me, or else they try to act as if nothing is wrong when in fact everything is. No one seems to notice that for the first time I am silent. The only one not proclaiming my pain to the world. Instead, I hide here deep inside myself. I sit in a chair in an empty room with only a coffin there. No people, no flowers, no sound, save the panicked cry of a lost little girl searching for her . . . mommy. . . MOMMY. . . Mommy.

Aurelie