Elisabeth Writing

I wrote this after my mom was hospitalized, recently, and many triggers came to light. I’m happy to report that she is ok. But this poem was born.

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I remember Death. He was beautiful.

His hair like black feathers catching the oily spill of night. Grey eyes like a blizzard of desire and absence. The way his snow-pale hands wrapped around my calves, his light pink mouth pursed as he knelt at my feet. Waiting.

I remember how he would not kiss me, not the way he kissed the other woman. I saw how she swooned in his arms, the tails of his coat catching in dirty snow as he cradled her, ever so gently. The mist of periwinkle shadows that escaped her open lips. His breath, sucking whatever essence of what – of who – she was, into himself. Feeding from her; taking her soul.

And yet, I still wanted him to kiss me.

At least, I did – then.

I once liked to flirt with Death.

I’d wallow at his altar, a mesh veil covering my eyes, my black chiffon dress a puddle around my deathly pale limbs. 

I’d dance with the ghosts of my past, or the old versions of myself, spinning in the flickering light. And sometimes I swore I could feel Death’s fingers splayed against my waist, pressing me to his own spectral image, growling at me to stop playing around. I’d only laugh, curling around the phantasms and shadows. 

I’d pour two glasses of the finest whisky, fluttering my lashes at the specter, the firelight playing against amber and emerald. 

“If you don’t stop drinking, you’ll die.” 

It wasn’t that I’d forgotten those words. How could anyone forget that kind of Warning with a capital W? It practically flashed, neon, in my mind. I just didn’t care. I wanted to freeze slowly to death in the fallen snow, but feel as if I was cocooned: in the heat of whisky and Death himself. A numbing ache.

I’d long since fallen out of love with the world. And wouldn’t he save me from that dreary bitterness? Wouldn’t he take me while I was young, before I broke any other hearts?

No. He wouldn’t.

There came a time when I hated Death.

When my father got cancer, I was 19. A young girl, and terrified, my grip on reality fraying.

I went to the Cleveland Clinic with him. I watched him vomit all night, and sleep all day. I watched him shiver in pain. I watched him grow thinner, quieter, weaker, sadder. 

Father was once the lumberjack, the hunter with his ax. He cut down nightmares with that ax; he hunted for our laughter even in the darkest of times. Somehow, he always found it, releasing giggles like rainbow bubbles into the dusky post-storm sky. He was the strength, the savior. 

I knew why Death wanted him. What a piece to add to his endless collection!

And yes, there he was: waiting.

Death was like a gargoyle, perched on the rooftops across the street. I ran into the night. I threw rocks at Death, trying to frighten him away, wishing he’d take off on those black, feathered wings. 

I screamed at him and shook my fist.

I wept. I begged.

He only looked at me with sad, solemn eyes. 

And then one day, he was gone.

Mother and I rejoiced. 

Hurrah! We’ve beaten Death! Father is alive!

But Death is a canny opponent. 

Death is patient.

It was 10 years before I saw Death again,

though sometimes I felt his breath stir on my cheek, his nails catching in my hair, as if it was blonde stardust and he longed to make a wish. 

To become. 

10 years is a long time. 

10 years of watching my father fade.

10 years of watching the light dull in his warm brown eyes. 

10 years of feeding tubes, hospitals, surgeries, ambulances, atrophying muscles, frail limbs.

When the man who once rode his bicycle 30 miles, couldn’t walk down the block without becoming dizzy and sick… 

When the man who once told stories about raccoons and pumpkin pies, funny forest animals and friendship, could no longer speak…

When the man who would inhale everyone’s leftovers and still go back for seconds, couldn’t even eat a lifesaver gummy… 

When the man who always ordered “one more” gin and tonic or blue moon (right as we were about to leave, every time!) couldn’t even swallow water, but instead had to get all his sustenance from the goddamn tube in his stomach…

Well.

When Death came, then, I did not drive him away.

I did not throw stones or brandish my knives.

I fell to my knees, and I asked him to be gentle with the man who I loved more than anything.

Because it wasn’t a life for my father, anymore.

It was a prison of bones and meat. And endless pain.

I wanted to feel his spirit fly free once more, an eagle dipping into the horizon with a shout of joy.  

Death bundled up my father like a child, whispering of an ocean oasis, where his own brother waited with a tanqueray and tonic, and soft music spilled from the waves. 

When I turned away, when I left, he was gone.

I never got to say goodbye.

But Death, I hoped, told him of how much I – we – all loved him.

Knowing him, in dreams and in glimpses, I am sure that Death did. 

Death left his mark on me

(he leaves his mark on us all). 

I felt him the night that I rode on a motorcycle under the swirl of stars and vodka; I carry the burn on my calf from Death’s kiss. I can’t even remember it.

I feel him in my scars; the way that I once longed to feel Death’s mouth. 

I feel him in the pills that stick in my throat, on nights when the moon outlives the sun. 

And mostly, I feel him in the way that I cling to Life. 

I grip Life with the fervor of a woman who was once addicted to alcohol, now addicted to the high of every tangerine soaked dawn that I witness. 

I throw my head back and laugh with abandon, uncaring if I seem uncouth. 

I dress up in silk and faerie wings and tromp through the gardens and fields of Ohio forests and prairies. And I see the looks, the sneers: “What is a woman in her 30s doing dressing up and acting that way? Shouldn’t she grow up?”

I smile, secretly.

They don’t know about the way I once smashed mirrors to see the slivers of my soul, the secret paths to the underworld.

They don’t know about the way I once approached Death like a supplicant.

They don’t know about the way I pummeled myself into a mold that never quite fit – though I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. I was like Cinderella’s sisters cutting their toes to squeeze into glass slippers, slipping in their own bright blood. 

And so let me laugh, sing, take photos, weep, whirl, and love with all my heart.

Because one day, Death will take me into his arms. He will dance me away into his realm, and I will bury my nose into his scent of roses and decay.

And there, in that world, I will see my father, my friends, my beloved dog Spirit, and the loved ones and ancestors who have longed (but not too much) to see me. 

And in Death’s embrace, I will laugh, as buoyant pixies are reborn.

But not yet, Death.

Not yet.