Christmas break
Dec. 28th, 2020 08:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
morgue_nI don't remember much from those days. It hurt, and I blocked them out. That Christmas break is all a blur to me, but there are things that jut out from that foggy sea of memory. I remember feeling like a ghost in your house. Or like I was the only one among the living in a house full of ghosts.
I remember the general tension that hung in the air. I remember all those words no one was saying pressing down with a physical weight.
I remember your small, delicate hands, and my arm on your shoulder, and how docile you had become. I remember how tired and quiet you were. Like a mouse. You, who would fence with me with words. Who was so playful and grinning when you said things because you KNEW they would infuriate or frustrate me. You loved it when I was a litttttle angry. It was your favorite pastime. You loved my snappy retorts. How quick the banter was.
But how quiet and beaten you were, now.
I remember the funeral. I remember being irritated at everyone. Looking back, they didn't know how to deal. Looking back, I was being overprotective of you, and I was taking the nights out on them.
The nights are what I remember most. I remember your body laying next to mine, shuddering in silence as you wept, and wept, and wept for your sister. How wet your face was. I'd drape my arm over you and, not knowing what to say, kiss your wet face and hold you tighter and coo in your ear until you stopped shaking. I remember you leaping awake, or rolling about in sweaty sheets from the nightmares. I woke you from them if I knew you were having them. I cradled you and stroked your hair until I felt your heartbeat quieten.
I remember the Christmas when you opened up presents from someone who wasn't alive anymore. When you traced their handwriting with your fingertips like you could touch her again. When you watched home videos of her, and thumbed through old portraits of her in plays. Or grinning as a baby. I remember your father, stoic, leaving to watch a movie alone. I remember your father holding your mother as she cried.
For Christmas, your father gave me a smoking pipe. He looked at me with wet eyes and told me "thank you for everything."
I'm glad I did it. I wouldn't change a thing... but now, when I think of Christmas joy, or giving in that manic, plastic way-- in that cozy advertisement way-- I cringe. I fall, and no one and nothing is there to catch me on the floor of my kitchen but my own shoulders.
I remember the general tension that hung in the air. I remember all those words no one was saying pressing down with a physical weight.
I remember your small, delicate hands, and my arm on your shoulder, and how docile you had become. I remember how tired and quiet you were. Like a mouse. You, who would fence with me with words. Who was so playful and grinning when you said things because you KNEW they would infuriate or frustrate me. You loved it when I was a litttttle angry. It was your favorite pastime. You loved my snappy retorts. How quick the banter was.
But how quiet and beaten you were, now.
I remember the funeral. I remember being irritated at everyone. Looking back, they didn't know how to deal. Looking back, I was being overprotective of you, and I was taking the nights out on them.
The nights are what I remember most. I remember your body laying next to mine, shuddering in silence as you wept, and wept, and wept for your sister. How wet your face was. I'd drape my arm over you and, not knowing what to say, kiss your wet face and hold you tighter and coo in your ear until you stopped shaking. I remember you leaping awake, or rolling about in sweaty sheets from the nightmares. I woke you from them if I knew you were having them. I cradled you and stroked your hair until I felt your heartbeat quieten.
I remember the Christmas when you opened up presents from someone who wasn't alive anymore. When you traced their handwriting with your fingertips like you could touch her again. When you watched home videos of her, and thumbed through old portraits of her in plays. Or grinning as a baby. I remember your father, stoic, leaving to watch a movie alone. I remember your father holding your mother as she cried.
For Christmas, your father gave me a smoking pipe. He looked at me with wet eyes and told me "thank you for everything."
I'm glad I did it. I wouldn't change a thing... but now, when I think of Christmas joy, or giving in that manic, plastic way-- in that cozy advertisement way-- I cringe. I fall, and no one and nothing is there to catch me on the floor of my kitchen but my own shoulders.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2021-01-06 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-07 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-11 03:29 pm (UTC)