Bonaduces I Nominate My Kitten For The King Of The Dead
I found some diaries from when I was thirteen, and
they're filled with half-invented stories, boring dreams
and little drawings from classroom windows where
tetherballs rattle, limp, on their poles. I was surprised
that there was nothing really in them about me that was
remotely real, until I saw volume three changed
completely about twelve pages in; then, tragedy kissed me
full on the lips. When I re-read what I wrote, I get a
lump in my throat, and it lingers in whatever I say.
Cradling what was left of a beloved pet unraveled years
and years of burying pain. It's essential that this is
taken to hart, because these lessons have been tested by
all the losses we've suffered so far. So I nominate my
kitten for the King of the Dead. Seven years have passed,
and now I'm back to this: distant, dogmatic, the words
flow from my lips, like in these pages of false history
dragged from attic to attic with me. So, Sara, listen
close: I want you here alive. And, Gail: I reserve a spot
at your bedside. Carla, I've been through all of this
with you, and I know you remember it, too. That ceremony
was the last thing that we ever did in that time zone
again. The origins of hope, wrapped in shoebox and rope,
dragging us from our world of pretend. Chorus.
