letters_to_the_dead kerry 1. it was never the right time. when i was visiting jackie in brooklyn you called me and my heart leaped when i saw your name. but then i could tell you were drunk and you said “oh I was JUST there with my girlfriend” and the radiator started clanging behind me and the screams of the baby upstairs echoed in the air shaft and all my wondering about why you’d called just shriveled up and died like a butterfly wing reduced to dust and i hated you and i hung up. whenever i went home to visit my parents i’d see you walking or someone would tell me they ran into you, and they’d tell me how you spoke and changed or didn’t change and describe the rawness of your face and it was more like they wanted to see my reaction than like they cared about how deeply unhappy you were. though some did say you seemed like you’d become a real asshole. several times i dreamed about you and you called or texted the next day. when i was 25 i sat on the curb on that dead-end street in my pit-stained overshirt and my jogging shorts and talked to you on the phone, though you were less than a mile away. you asked about my brother and we told soft old worn-out jokes, and i asked about your sisters and you told me about the gifts you were buying for your nieces and i could hear how much you loved them, and you told me about lucky’s nervous breakdown and your voice was brassy and cold with the kind of grief that is so unique to you. i told you the fucked up stuff that had happened to me since we last talked, and the even farther distance in your voice--you were talking to me like you’d seen something ugly and tainted about me but were trying to be polite. maybe i’d wished you could still wrap your skinny arms around me and tell me none of it would have happened if you had been there, which of course isn’t true. and we don’t speak to each other like that anymore. do you remember rapid-fire texting me from that cougar bar where they thought you were a yoga teacher and you were offended? (why did you even go there, and why alone??) eventually you were across the street at waffle house. “i did so much coke i feel like shit” “i can’t even look at these hashbrowns what was i thinking” i wanted to save you from yourself, you coked-up well-read alcoholic librarian. i will always love your nose. is that weird? we got drinks at victory a few years later and i lied to everyone about meeting up with you. you looked so sour, i like the whole world had disappointed you. your round glasses and cable sweater suited you, and you were snide about my tattoos. when i dropped you off at the little brick duplex on wylie street i wondered if we should hug. you looked like you were asking yourself the same thing (we didn’t) and i wondered if it would be the last time i saw you (it was). not long before you died i dreamed about you crying like you did when we sat in my car in the rain and you first told me how your dad beat you for writing poetry, and i woke up scared. i nearly called you. it was the height of the pandemic and i was nocturnal and too skinny and planning to quit smoking cigarettes. i wondered how you were, imagined not good. i can’t help regretting not calling you but you wouldn’t have answered anyway. 210726 ... kerry 2. they decided it was jackie’s job to tell me. she said she had some news about you. i said “he killed himself didn’t he” and realized it was a call i’d expected for years. she sounded shocked but said she was relieved i was taking it so well, and i said well it's been a really_long_time and if you think about it i didn't even really know you anymore. i got off the phone, went into the kitchen poured a glass of water stood in front of the sink and cried. and i never drank the water. i put on my dark sunglasses so no one could see my puffy eyes and i went for a walk, crying all the way down dickinson to 16th to wharton to 20th to wilder back home. slammed the iron door behind me, cranked up the_fall to block out all thought, and took and icy shower. your family was even more ashamed of you dead than alive. i always despised them, wasn’t allowed in their house. i wasn’t allowed to exist until you were howling hurtling in your corolla down ponce de leon ave like you were trying to blast into space and finally leave us all for good, and your mother called me and said in her broken english she couldn’t find you and did i know where you were? she used my name and i really really loathed her then, because i saw that i did exist to her; she just didn’t want me to. sami said they put chrysanthemums in your casket, that it’s a hindu tradition. he’d tried to tell you he was going to be a father and you never answered. that’s when they went looking for you. you loved babies, and sami. after the memorial that i didn’t attend i dialed your number, surprised your phone still worked, and left a voicemail. i did it for months wondering if anyone else was doing the same and what they were saying and if they were accusing you of being selfish for leaving us to agonize over what we could have done or said, or if they were just reminding you how much they missed you or if they were singing to you or confessing some secret love or hate even, or maybe they were just telling you about their day. i still know your number by heart, tens of thousands of times i’ve dialed it at all hours over the years, and the beautiful harmony of those digits, i could write them out without lifting my pen. in my messages told you i wasn’t mad (though sometimes i was) and in others i just complained and in so many i asked you unanswerable questions. and i wanted to know where exactly you had gone. “i’m sorry i didn’t go to your memorial but it was on zoom and you would have hated that” “i could speculate about how you did it but maybe it’s better that i don’t know, that almost no one knows. what do you think?” “please don’t be hurt that i always had a feeling this is how it would end” “you know i really don’t blame you for just getting out of here but where the fuck are you now?” 210727 ... kerry 3. one afternoon in november i stood in the backyard and watched the birds hop around and poke at the dirt and i cried into your inbox about something that had happened that day. i’d been doing a lot of crying lately. the orange tomcat who roams our block sat on the cement wall cleaning his white paws while i poured out the whole story and sobbed like a lost child and it didn’t matter that mary next door could probably hear me. but forget mary, because she never said a word about that home-made apple pie and i know it was damn good. maybe she thinks i was trying to poison her. whenever i have to move and box up my books i find some you gave me and sometimes when i have the courage i’ll peek inside one to see where i tore out the first page on a day when i was exhausted destroyed bled dry by the memory of you, the page where you’d write the date and a note to me. i only left one intact, in your tattered copy of catcher in the rye. it’s mine and only mine until maybe one day i have the courage to tear it out too. i was strolling through my dream-city that waits for me when i’m feeling lost in life and i saw you sitting on some graffitied steps, your knees pulled up to your chest. i recognized the delicate ripple of your spine beneath your thin white t-shirt and the corduroys you always wore and the shine of your thick black hair and i called your name but it wasn’t you after all. (is that how i lost my map? i really need those cobblestone streets and cold dark chapels and sweet green grass right now.) maybe that was my last dream about you. i don’t know how i feel about that. i still want to call you just to ramble, especially when i’m jealous of you being wherever you are but i’m so afraid your inbox will finally be full or your phone will be disconnected and then you’ll be dead dead dead dead dead 210727 ... unhinged i had to kiss your cold dead cheek to be sure you were really gone from this world i move your urn from place to place in my bedroom because no place seems right i wish everyday that you were still here so i could share something new with you at first i was afraid that healing would mean forgetting and i wallowed in my grief despair like we both knew i would but slowly i am coming back to life with the help of wonderful people i wish that i could tell you about i am going to do great things in this world to honor your memory and the small corner of my heart you placed your god in hopes wherever you are you see it all, the world i am going to make that you said was impossible xoxo 210728 ... kerry when i was going through an old trunk the other day, i found a picture of you as a little girl, labeled "ginnie, NY." you must have been four or five and you looked like a kewpie doll--i would guess this picture was taken in the 20s. i want to frame it, see your little smirk, an expression i never saw when you were alive. you worked at the hospital and picked me up at the bus stop and showed me how to plant flowers so carefully so easily cupping the root ball in my tiny palms. pansies have never been my favorite, except they remind me of you. on christmas you watched us open presents and you gave me books and treasure trolls and chocolate coins for hanukkah. i sat in in the corner of your sunny kitchen and drank coca-cola from a pewter glass and drew pictures and played with a dreidel. peter could make it spin like i never could. your backyard was full of trails and little hiddens--a pond, a birdbath, a bench, monkey-grass and loblollies and holly bushes. i think other neighborhood children crept around there, too. one afternoon i was running down a path and nearly flew through a sprawling web, spun by a hand-sized spider all yellow and black and regal, and i will never forget the shock and horror and then delight that i felt. you went fast--6 months. the rabbi turned you away, said you hadn't been devout enough for him to escort you out of this life. at your funeral, just outside some episcopal church none of us had ever been to the priest brought out your ashes in a cardboard box and spilled them in a thick line in an untended garden, and then there was a breeze and you were all over our feet, and your daughters were crying, and i was too, but now i know they may not have been yours at all--it's morbid, gruesome, sure, but perhaps it was only a tiny bit of you that landed on my shoe, and you are somewhere else entirely. 210809 ... nr i still haven't cried. i don't think i even cried when finding out about your diagnosis nearly three years ago. on thanksgiving of all days. i do remember uttering "jesus christ" when you told us, realizing my fears had come true. i wasn't ever really expecting them to. my feelings were buried deep; i didn't know how else to function knowing this information. your health changed slowly, then more quickly, and then really started to disintegrate until your body shut down. you hated not being able to do things for us. this past year, when you couldn't talk with your voice or move much, we made christmas dinner for the first time, with you directing us. you didn't like that you couldn't physically help, since you'd made it with family for decades, but you were still 100% involved. you'd worry about us. you'd look at me and smile when i made a comment or joke that no one else heard or appreciated. i just always took for granted that you'd be around. i haven't been the same since. when i found out that you had passed, i had a mild anxiety attack, but didn't cry. when i lost you, i lost a part of me. 210907 ... kerry i think of you less and less now, but last night, you were in my dream. it's been a while. we were in a lagoon, making out underwater. i swallowed some water and it startled me awake. when i opened my eyes there was a song playing in my head, a song you put on a mixtape for me when we were sixteen. it wasn't necessarily my favorite, but i found myself singing it often. that year during fall break my dad and i flew up to boston to look at colleges. my cousin was living there and he showed us around, took us to newbury comics and we went out for pizza with his girlfriend. he was watching his cholesterol and peeled the cheese off his slices, and she was an opera singer and a christian scientist, with a face like a girl in a 17th century dutch painting. my cousin took us out to worcester where he taught philosophy at a tiny college. we drove through the countryside where the leaves were turning and the landscape looked like it was on fire, and that song was playing, the one you put on the mixtape. my cousin was at least twenty years older than me and he grinned when i recognized the song, knew robert pollard's voice. i looked at him and thought to myself, "so this is what a philosopher looks like." i saw him again when i flew out to los angeles over new years to stay with my aunt, and my other cousins were there, and they gave me a reissued copy of the cure's three imaginary boys as a late christmas present and said, "you really belonged with us." see? i drift away from you more easily. but i talked to you every night during that trip, and listened to another mix you gave me on the flight home. at midnight i looked out the window and saw fireworks exploding beneath the plane, and "tangerine" by led zeppelin was playing in my headphones, and i cried a little and didn't know why. 220622 ... nr i was thinking about how many peripheral people in my life i've lost, who have all had their own special meanings. /// you were the manager back at the first real job i had as a teenager. you cared about me and the other teenage part-timers, hung out with us, and joked around with us. you didn't have any children, and at times it felt like we were your honorary children. you gave us 'music world' gift certificates one year for christmas. we worked at a post office in a store. the store owner was a bit strict and would nag us if it seemed like we had nothing to do, so anytime he was coming upstairs to the floor, you'd say "look busy!" so he wouldn't say anything, even though we knew you cared about the store making money nearly as much as he did. we were grateful as we focused on seeming super focused on organizing some stamps. i found out years later that you had died of cancer. this one was tough; you'd felt like a kind of fun aunt. /// you were a creative writing teacher i had back in university. you were a published poet, but i remember feeling like we weren't quite on the same page, no pun intended, about what made good poetry. i think i got the best mark in my poetry class on a poem i barely had time to write, so i based it on radiohead's "fitter happier" and whipped up a few words in 10 minutes. but you were a good teacher. a decade later, when i worked in publishing, i ended up at the same dinner table as you at an event. my boss was on one side of me, your partner was on the other, and you were beside him. my boss was shmoozing with the rest of the table, as was customary for him, so i was left to make small talk with your partner. i tried to talk to you at the same time, but you didn't seem thrilled about the whole situation and didn't participate much. i found out years later, at dinner in chicago, that you had died of cancer. __ you were a bookseller i worked with in publishing. you were older than my parents. we always got along and you were supportive of us and our authors every time i wanted to work with you. your bookstore was, and still is, a great independent place with lots of good books and events. i found out years later you had died of cancer. /// you were my first drum teacher. you would come to our house, and taught both my mom and me, before my mom had to quit and devote her time to being a full-time mom. i continued lessons with you for about six years, before i switched to my university teacher. they were supposed to be half-hour lessons, but you'd spend about 20 minutes talking and give a lesson for maybe another 15 to 20 minutes. i did learn the basics, though, and you were entertaining. you told us your wife, whose name rhymed with my mom's (and that always amused you both), had been diagnosed with MS. i think i looked you up a few years ago hoping you were managing okay with your wife's illness, and found out you had died of cancer. /// (fuck_cancer) 220707 ... kerry you visit me in my dreams and make a point of ignoring me. i run into you at parties, reunions, even when i am teaching a class and i know--because i see you sitting there in that shitty little desk with your skinny legs and ripped flannel--that you enrolled aware that this is my class, that i will be standing in front of you doing something i really dislike but am qualified to do. i'm not a great teacher, all the students can tell my instruction is lackluster and reluctant, and with you there, only making occasional eye contact, i am especially aware that this is just a performance. it was before this, before we found ourselves in a classroom without walls, that i saw you laughing in a cluster of people we've both known forever, and i realized your suicide was all a joke. a stunt. i wanted to wring your neck. it will be maybe four years--i'm bad with time--since you did it, and i don't think of you constantly anymore. my thinking-of-you has evolved. at first, as you know, i was devastated. and life at that time in general was devastating, for me and for everyone, and i wonder if i had been a happy person your death would have hit me differently. and then for a while i was tired of it, but i couldn't stop. i couldn't prevent you from slinking into my dreams. and now instead of looking at you wide-eyed and tragically i am squinting, i am skeptical. today i talked to someone about Truth. he is a lapsed catholic and very distressed about the fact (is it a fact?) that there is no concrete truth, or that if there is a truth that it changes, and we settled on the phrase "yes, and." and this was a comfort to him. yes, this can be true--and this other thing can also be true. and it is holding two separate things in your hands, acknowledging them both as valid and true, not necessarily in conflict with each other. so yes, i can remember the taste of your mouth, and i also remember how cruel you could be. i remember the feel of your palm, and i also remember wishing you would die because i wanted to be rid of you but knew i couldn't walk away. 240210 ... kerry you visit me in my dreams and make a point of ignoring me. i run into you at parties, reunions, even when i am teaching a class and i know--because i see you sitting there in that shitty little desk with your skinny legs and ripped flannel--that you enrolled aware that this is my class, that i will be standing in front of you doing something i really dislike but am qualified to do. i'm not a great teacher, all the students can tell my instruction is lackluster and reluctant, and with you there, only making occasional eye contact, i am especially aware that this is just a performance. it was before this, before we found ourselves in a classroom without walls, that i saw you laughing in a cluster of people we've both known forever, and i realized your suicide was all a joke. a stunt. i wanted to wring your neck. it will be maybe four years--i'm bad with time--since you did it, and i don't think of you constantly anymore. my thinking-of-you has evolved. at first, as you know, i was devastated. and life at that time in general was devastating, for me and for everyone, and i wonder if i had been a happy person your death would have hit me differently. and then for a while i was tired of it, but i couldn't stop. i couldn't prevent you from slinking into my dreams. and now instead of looking at you wide-eyed and tragically i am squinting, i am skeptical. today i talked to someone about Truth. he is a lapsed catholic and very distressed about the fact (is it a fact?) that there is no concrete truth, or that if there is a truth that it changes, and we settled on the phrase "yes, and." and this was a comfort to him. yes, this can be true--and this other thing can also be true. and it is holding two separate things in your hands, acknowledging them both as valid and true, not necessarily in conflict with each other. so yes, i can remember the taste of your mouth, and i also remember how cruel you could be. i remember the feel of your palm, and i also remember wishing you would die because i wanted to be rid of you but knew i couldn't walk away. 240210 ... kerry (ugh, the dreaded double-blathe!) 240210 what's it to you? who go blather from