Consciousness

Jessica.


Your over excited laughter reminds me once again, that it is your birthday.
Fussing over a tight dress, the taught stomach never flat enough, the eye make-up never dramatic enough. I struggle to care. But, you cared. I struggle to care now about anything. You are gone now. Lost in scream of tires and a young boys silent eyes. He never really had a chance with you. You were sparkling. My sister. Too bright.. too real. Too quick for everyone else and everything else around you. You. You.


You used to scream Alanis Morisett's 'Ironic' to all hours of the morning infuriating our parents... and perplexing me. But there is nothing to say to the boy as he repeats his story over and over to me in the back of my parents ute. All I can tell him is to make sure that he places a full-stop at the end of the sentence. Finish the chapter that ends in the blur of a white van, a mother of one who died, splashed in full colour across country papers. A town in shock. A family lost. The police mentioned he will be charged. His brown eyes are staring at me asking for forgiveness. At twenty-two there is nothing left. He has just been released from hospital. He is walking fine. He tells me he loved her. Someone grabs my hand and hugs me. I play with your son, and he looks like you when you were little. Especially when you were a flower-girl. I wonder if you knew that our sister was pregnant after trying for so long. Selfishly I hate you if you knew before me. I forget if you saw my tattoo before you disapeared. Where did you go? I talked to you on Friday. Why did you take my bike helmet? Why did you not come and visit like you told me? Where did you die? It was Sunday on the the 4th of July. Americans were celebrating their independence with fireworks.I can't bring myself to join your friends who have gone to look at the crash site.

There is nothing here for me. I touch your hair. It feels brittle I think, but maybe that is just my state of mind. Nothing looks real. Your jaw is slack, and they have done your makeup strangely.There is no life in your face, no elasticity in your skin. You are in a coffin. People are around. I am not here. I am not around. I am gone like you, somewhere else. SOmeone tells me to stop shaking. I stop shaking. I stop the emotion, blocking it with a black hanchichef in my throat. That feels better. That feels like the gap is blcoked just a bit.


A week turnes into a month, then into two. I hate my mother for being so protective. She smothers me with her grief. It sits on me like a heavy stillness, that burns on slow bubble, never cooking anything. It feeds on the comforting.


We need each other, her and I. But I am lost in my dream world. The chapter has not ended, and I cannot take my own advice and but a full-stop to the end of this story. There is more too her life than a full-stop. Your son is growing.