The Godly and the Dead are Intertwined

Death is a new kind of birth. All of you is cemented in an opaque resin, forever memorialized as a Joan of Arc figure. 

A burning lady, fierce-some, untouchable. When you die, you become perfect. All of your horrific insides are scrubbed clean, filled with shiny embalming chemicals until you sparkle, made anew. 

You are sewn shut like a doll, fit with a peaceful sleeping face. You are no longer a writhing thing full of wrong, but a beautiful pressed flower, forever. An angel in a casket, lowered into the ground so carefully, golden hair spilling around you like a halo. The dead are not people; the dead are god.

When my dad died, he became something new in the eyes of each of my family members. 

To his brothers, a loving pain in the ass, not the man they got into a fist fight with on Christmas Day on their front lawn. 

To my grandmother, her angelic child who had never stolen all the money from her bank account or stolen her prescription painkillers, only to help her look for them when she was crying, asking where on earth she could’ve lost them. 

To my siblings, a symbol of what they never wanted to be. 

To me, he is an infected sore that leaks out of each orifice in my body without stopping. 

His flaws are reflected in my blood, and his kindness radiates out of my ass, reaching people in weird and awkward ways I can’t hope to explain. I don’t think that’s an idealistic view of him, not one bit. 

Sometimes I think I’m the only one who truly remembers.

Next

Previous