What Is

What is

W

The last days of September and the lungs are about to collapse once more, like before, flooded. And like always, the womb is still a murderer. There is bleeding curled on the floor, quietly bandaged, rubbed, and hushed--- these choked screams sitting up, nodding, gasping, and finally feeling saltwater pouring from cheeks onto clenched hands.

Outside, there is unending rain, drowning the streets, the city.

It is just a concept to the murder happening in a tower.

But there is drowning, wondering when in the past two years the heart has turned into a stone once more. And so a roll-call of all who matter to the heart: muddy, tired, alive and now cleaning up all that damaged muck.

“And if one of them had died?”

The mouth says, I would know. There is an agreement.

But would the heart feel it?

R

The last days of September had comforted the early chaos with, “It will all turn in October.” The first days of October had come with another killer that is a storm, a tsunami, an earthquake, more storms.

The lungs and womb, fighting for life, bedridden. But on a first Saturday, the body’s clock began ticking to calls for its presence--- called by the liver, the little brother.

The mouth nods, bracing, All right.

The mouth chatters on the drive with brittle laughter. Then the thighs feel the strain of climbing up, up, up--- the lungs shrill a name to wake up--- the left fist pounding on a door up, up, up!

The door is opened by a wasted old body only to stumble back into its bed: the head shakes, tucks the dying body into bed, the nose sniffs at the mess and sighs, the liver laughs, and the hands begin to wash the dirty glasses.

Little brother, the liver, says to the hands, “Daddy died.”

The hands stop, turns, and goes to little brother to hug its liver. The hands lead the liver to the table and opens the bottle of vodka, “All right. Let it all out.”

Little brother, the liver, drinks shot after shot and the hands match it shot after shot until the liver is weeping from the pain of his daddy’s death, the weight of being the man now. The hands say as they soothe the liver clinging to it, “Cry, little brother, cry. I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

Later on the hands cradle little brother, the hiccupping liver, until it falls asleep like a child. Later on the hands get up and vomits the liver’s grief it took in.

Later on they all wake up. Little brother, the liver, asks, “And what happened to you?”

The lungs, the womb, the mouth, the liver, the heart says, “I’ve been sick.”

Little brother, the liver says, “You look like it.” And says that it spoke to a ghost--- and that no matter when and where, the ghost always speaks of how it loves this sick lungs, womb, mouth, liver and heart.

O

There is a laughing uproar, “You agreed to an interview?!” and “There is a picture?!” and “The world must be really ending!”

The answering shrug says, “Look around you. It is ending.”

N

It is the 16^th of October and the body wakes up to purring. Hi baby. The child is watching and the answer is a smile: today, nine human lives end their time sucking the body’s blood dry and they live on.

The body moves to the morning---then there’s the door bell: There is a cat that fell, black and white, please check.

The mouth begins screaming the child’s name--- no answer---rushes to the elevator, is led near the pool, sees----

Baby! Baby! Baby!

The child is alive--- feral--- bloody--- crushed organs--- thrashing, clawing the air for breath, fighting death, snarling breath and pain----

The crowd says, “Don’t touch it. It will bite you. Probably saw a bird. Ran for it.”

The ears do not listen, the knees fall near the child’s body, “Hush, hush, baby, baby, Mommy’s here.”

The hands touch the writhing body and it becomes still, gasping for breath.

The mouth snaps to the crowd, the guards, “One of you get a taxi. The other, go upstairs. Tell them we need to go to the vet.”

Claws slowing, becoming more still, gasp--- Hope.

The hands continue to soothe, “Mommy’s here…Mommy’s here…”

The child calms then begins to urinate blood.

The mouth begins to sob.

The hands continue to touch the child, stroking the fur, “Baby…Baby ko…It’s okay… It’s okay…Mommy’s here…Baby ko…”

Becoming still…still… My fault…My fault…My fault…

G

A year later, the body remembers all these and all that happened after. It flinches when it hears a cat. It freezes when it hears the coming water. Everyday it dreads leaving its tower, where it is safe, yet it knows it cannot remain inside and seek relief from bleeding salt water.

In the last days of September, feeling the murdering womb once more, it is called a bad partner--- why don’t you ask me why I am unhappy. The mind sighs--- Even that is my obligation, my decision, too? The body strains from all the woes it has taken into itself and to give back hope, future---

That light from all the dark in the body that bears a factory of souls. It is pained by September: Three years before, the lungs, kidneys, womb were in a hospital--- the body driven to its bones by a heart that refused to stop beating for all those souls seeking love. Two years before, it was caring for the prostate of its father…Eight years before, it had taken its partner and bestowed familial rights without the marital contract because its partner’s family fell apart.

And this year, September had asked for space from this body because the heart it loves wanted to see if it could breathe once more, could make itself bigger with a breath to take in all the anger--- No, not anger, exasperation, hurt, scars, scabs, wounds that wouldn’t heal--- to choose to be happy somewhere else rather than be miserable with this body. To understand, the mind took over the heart.

In the first days of October, upon entering the aunt’s chamber, the mouth says, “Twice a month now.” There it was--- alarm--- then the urgency being masked by that spinster laugh, “Let’s get you an ultrasound fast. Now. Oh dear don’t tell me the left ovary will have to go too…”

There was that again, that sadness---no, panic---bracing, the eyes were almost in tears. This time the body was 31 and no longer just turned 20 but still the womb’s mother was beside it. This time the body was asked its age.

“Children?”

The mouth said, “None.”

“Single?”

The mouth hesitated for the first time in 12 years, “Yes.” It told its mother that somewhere deep in its soul is still that small-town girl who would be content in a small town like this--- a teaching job, watch over the children, care for the aging parents. Its mother held it close then, said, “Peace…Peace…Just be calm…” The heart answered, “I love you, Ma. Thank you for being home.”

The body was there in the same place where life was altered 12 years ago, where it all stopped being just about a boy and a girl discovering love. Now the body has a viable uterus and no longer a cancer-threatened ovary yet it has become bloodless and prime for cervical cancer. Now the body is alone.

And after, another friend died--- a living wound that never healed--- and the body is left to care for the left widower, bound by the death wish of the woman they both love whose secret wound they tried to heal, signed reciprocal rights--- these two bereaved hearts softened by age, tormented by their minds in rewind, accepting their weird.

The ears listen as the widower apologizes for his maudlin, I don’t know how to grieve…I know you understand and have made me feel better, without feeling like I’ve been dumping on you.

This is how you grieve--- you tell stories. The mouth sighs, “Life is too short for these stupid things that get in between people who love each other.” And so the body has become more grateful for certain memories in this time--- like being in another place after all these, being gifted with a lightning sky by the sea, sleep, a daughter born on the same birthday, and time given by unlikeliest bodies who strangely understand how the mouth keeps its silence masking grief with a smile for the mind wants to understand abandonment and wills the heart to follow in acceptance.

It always comes like this, bad things when more things are supposed to be good, then worse things. Like the silence of weeks after an angry Monday in the last days of October. Or on a Thursday in November--- just before this body’s new year and out of the numbers in the calendar--- its name once called beloved then said in exasperation and the heart being told that it is no longer loved.