Yesterday

Like it was yesterday
Except that it wasn’t
Like it was right back then
When your face fell out of itself
In to the silence that said everything

Outside the room
I could hear the phone ring
And the sound of women laughing.

Someone knocked on the door softly
And gave you a bag with information in it
To give to me later (when it started to sink in).

Like it was yesterday
I remember
I was seated in front of a mirror and
I could see my own face frozen in muted horror

It was like watching a fat women on a TV screen
Caught up in a soap opera scene
I was suddenly trapped in a B grade drama
The kind only old people watch at age care facilities.

I stared back at this muted soap opera star
while you said
“I’m so sorry this is happening to you”

But I couldn’t grasp it then.

I was too caught up on a speeding whooshing ride
roaring down the middle of a water slide
Straight in to a personal hell I’d never seen coming

Smashing in to the end of life as I knew it
Smashing in to the end of me as I knew her too...

Bang.

Like it was yesterday.

The way you frantically called my partner and
Then the fractured silence we choked on together
While we sat there - because no one answered

I just sat staring at myself in that mirror
Caught in the headlights of this
bereaved frozen slice of my life
Slowly sinking and sucking in water

Like it was yesterday all this...
And like it was yesterday
every day since.

And right now too

Right now as she tells me she is having her third baby
And it is due just after Christmas

Like it was yesterday
That whooshing rushes back
Sucking me down that slide
Like I’ve swallowed hot coals
I swallow the secret silent explosions
and try not to choke on them
while I stand there smiling.

I am ripped apart and burning
but I say all the right things.

Like it was yesterday
And for every day since
I always say all the right things.

While the rest of you get to carry on
Blissfully untouched and sure everything
Will be alright - because it always is...

So sure everything will be ok
-just like I used to be
once
A long time
before
it was yesterday

Gorgeous. Absolutely spot-on. Thank you for sharing your heart and talent with us.