I

---

 

I go to my Mum’s house

and find you standing in the kitchen

but I know it isn’t you.

You’re dead after all.

But I see my Mother’s face

and she looks so happy,

so happy that I almost can’t tell her;

it can’t be you.

---

 

Somehow we are in the dinning room.

Mum is cooking in the kitchen

and I can’t take it anymore.

I know it isn’t you.

I break my silence and start to say…

But you lung at me across the table,

your hands are around my neck.

As I lose consciousness

I wake up screaming on the floor

in a hostel in New York.

---

 

II

---

 

You are back in the kitchen.

I know it’s you because you tell me you can only stay a while.

I hug you.

It feels real.

Like you could almost be there.

---

 

We make coffee and walk outside to sip it in the sun.

Overwhelmed with sorrow and happiness

I grab your hand and you tell me, “Sorry.”

Your hand grows cold and I am standing next to your bed

watching you die

again.

---

 

III

---

 

We’re at the Sandbar,

waiting to see if the fish will bite.

You tell me to watch the line in the water while you get something from the car.

You drive off and leave me.

I stare at the line until it starts to knot

and then the fishing line is around my neck.

I can’t see who is pulling it tight.

I reach out to the murky water and fall in.

The creek turns into the ocean and the ocean brings me to my mother’s kitchen.

(It’s not your kitchen anymore,

you’re dead after all.)

You’re mad;

“Didn’t watch the line.

Gotta watch the line.

How are you to know?”

 

“Know what?” I ask.

 

“Know when to let go…”