Would you tell them the truth?
How I couldn’t fight anymore.
Drowning by my own hand,
breathless from my own grasp.
You wouldn’t tell them how I did it, though.
I know you too well.
Coming up with some excuse to erase my pain.
Blur out the edges of the picture you painted.
I’ll accept the lies to save your image,
while mine is 6 feet under.
What would you wear to my funeral?
The black dress you got for Grandpa’s?
You looked so beautiful while weeping.
Would you do the same for me?
You’d dress me in something ill-fitting,
smear theatrical makeup on my features you often
critiqued.
I’ll be your show pony one last time for my final act.
Lying lifeless and obedient, just like you wanted me.
I didn’t mean to burden you with burying
your own child,
your only child.
What would you engrave on my tombstone?
Gone but never forgotten?
Those words mean nothing to me when all I’ve ever
wanted was to be forgotten,
then forgiven.
Granted approval for my leaves to wilt so I could
slowly be absorbed by the earth.
Gone but never forgotten.
But you forgot me when I was still here.
Plagued by the lies you told yourself of my happiness.
They don’t matter now in this cedar box.
You’ll come visit my grave,
lay flowers you thought I liked on my dirt,
dampened from your guilty tears.
You’d think about what went wrong,
how you could have prevented this.
But nothing could be done.
You set this in motion the first time
you picked up that paintbrush,
outlining my edges with jagged strokes.
Now, look up at the moon and think of me.
See my face as you wash away your guilt
in my luminance.
Think of me every time you pass a mirror
and notice another wrinkle,
how I never will.
Brooke Heldermon studies at DePaul University, majoring in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. She finds comfort in the expansive area of poetry and short story-telling, where imagination can run wild. Her writing explores themes of the human experience where loss, lust, sorrow, and pain run rampant.